Jack and the Witch
by Luraia
Summary: Jack was born in London, and he was apprenticed to Bert in London, but there was a period of his life spent outside of London, under the care of a wicked witch. If only he knew a magical nanny who could come and save the day. Oh well, everyone has their first meetings, even very old friends.
1. Chapter 1

Warning: This turned out rather...darker than I intended it to be when I first set out to write it. Not as dark as it could have gone, I suppose, but even so. It starts out with the death of Jack's mom, then throw in some moments of child abuse (verbal mostly, but on occasion it does get physical) and that's the beginning of this story. And this was meant to be the fun story that he tells to Jane to make her laugh. 

Well...I guess I can at least say it does get better? And Jack turns out just fine, and is going to have Bert (and I will write that story eventually. Probably.) Oh well, I wrote it, so I might as well share it.

**Story**

For the first month after his mama died, Jack existed in a sort of dark fog. He knew there must have been sunshiny days, because summer was like that, even in London, but he didn't remember the sunshine or birdsong or games or anything that he knew to be _good_.

He supposed he cried quite a bit, and signora Bianchi, who was just as motherly a person as a young orphan could hope for, had doubtless held him all the while. He knew this, because he had strong memories of her holding him in her lap while little Sofia glared at him for taking her spot. He didn't really remember that first month properly though, just that he woke up one morning to the sound of a bird singing, and the dark was gone. Not forever gone, but receded back into the regular shadows that all lives know, and not the heavy veil it had been.

He missed his mama, but it was a nice day, and it seemed his insides had been growing all that dark time, because now there was room inside him to miss his mama fiercely and to smile at the fine day. And he had signora Bianchi and signor Bianchi (when he was home, which was seldom) and even with their eight children there was room enough for him too. Even Sofia didn't seem to mind him too much, except when he had her mother all to himself. And he was living in the same neighborhood as before, only two houses sideways, with people he already sort of knew instead of being sent away to strangers.

That is not to say that living with the Bianchis was perfect.

Jack's mama spoke to him in Spanish and in English. She favored English, even though it was harder for her.

"In here, you are my Jacobo," she told him. "Out there, you are Jack the English boy."

And then there was the accident, and everyone in the whole neighborhood was sorry about it, and he left his own home to go to the funeral and was taken home to a different house that was crowded to the roof but in a comfortable sort of way.

Jack was a bit confused by it all, but still young enough to expect adults to cart him around wherever they pleased, so when a sort of familiar woman was suddenly tucking him into bed that night, he still politely tried to say, "Thank you, Mrs. Bianchi."

"No, no!" she scolded. "I won't be Mrs. Bianchi in my own home. I am signora Bianchi. We speak Italian here." And then she said quite a bit more, only in Italian, that Jack couldn't follow, and left him more confused than ever. And after that day, signora Bianchi was very firm; Jack wasn't to ignore his heritage and he was to speak Italian in her household like a good little bambino.

At least three of her children tried to explain to her that Jack wasn't actually Italian, but somehow this fact couldn't fit inside her head. Jack was an immigrant like them (or at least, his family was), he certainly wasn't French or Irish, so he must be Italian. Sure, his Italian sounded a bit funny, especially at first, but Jack's mama had been mistakenly raising him English and he'd probably just learned the words a bit wrong.

So Jack went from mostly speaking English, except at home with his mama when they had a sort of secret language, to having to learn a third language or forever be in disgrace. Most children would have responded in one of two ways; they would have embraced the new household and abandoned their old identity to fit in…or they would have resented the new household and rebelled. Jack did neither.

When Jack was done crying, and his insides had grown big enough to carry around his loss, he laughed. Even he couldn't say why, perhaps simply because he'd cried for too long and he'd come out on the other side, but the fact that signora Bianchi remained convinced that Jack was a little Italian bambino, no matter how many times it was explained (and Jack had tried in Spanish once, and she had just shaken her head at his poor Italian) was the most hilarious thing he'd ever known.

He learned some Italian; even if he'd willfully tried to stay ignorant it would have been hard not to pick up a bit, and he rather enjoyed the new language. And he thought signora Bianchi very kind. But she wasn't his mama, and he did just as signora Bianchi ordered him to do and he didn't forget his heritage.

This led to occasional difficulties for him. When he had time to think out his words carefully, he could figure out the right ones for the occasion. In the Bianchi household, that would mean speaking Italian. Out and about, that would mean English. To his private self, that meant Spanish.

But when he was startled into speaking, when he didn't have the time to think, or the speaking was for those little pleasantries that we are all taught when we are young for politeness, somehow the first words to come out were in Spanish.

"È _grazie_, Jack!" he'd be scolded, after an incautious _gracias_, and then she'd go on for a good five minutes about him speaking gibberish, and _what could his mama, god rest her soul, have been thinking to teach him such poor Italian_.

And something inside of Jack would feel very unpleasant. It was a bit like guilt, and a bit like rage, and a bit like being tickled. It made him feel like he had a bear caged up inside his chest and he didn't like it. He didn't like that she made his mama sound like a bad mama. And at the same time he didn't like that he'd let signora Bianchi down, when she was so good and kind to him. And it was funny too, because she still thought he was Italian. And he didn't know whether to laugh or to cry or to grind his teeth and growl.

"Never mind Mamma," Giorgio would tell him. "She doesn't understand."

And what he really meant was 'she doesn't understand what it's like out there'. Outside of the house, when Giorgio became George, and pretended there was no such country as Italy in existence.

Jack was still a very small child, and he didn't have the words in any language to explain that he disagreed, but instinctively he felt that signora Bianchi _did_ understand; she understood all too well, and that in a lot of ways she was like Jack's mama, only his mama had reacted to 'out there' by going in the opposite direction. Jack didn't know how to say any of this, even to himself, so he'd shrug and smile and do his chores or go and play and he'd try hard to remember his words.

And then one day, a man came around, and, though Jack didn't know it, his life was about to be turned upside down again.

"Why aren't you in school?" the man had asked Jack when he saw him playing outside, minding Sofia and the baby while signora Bianchi was busy and didn't want little ones under foot.

"_We speak Italian here_," Jack had answered, in Italian, because that was an iron Rule. And to Jack's confusion, his simple words caused the man to grow so angry his face twisted into a horrible sort of snarl, and the next thing Jack knew, his ear was ringing and he'd fallen on the ground.

"Respect your elders, boy!" the man had shouted.

"_No hurt my Jack_!" little Sofia had howled in response, and kicked the man in the shin with all her might and the baby screamed and the man turned so red that Jack rather worried he might be ill.

Jack was smart enough to know they were in danger, and he wasn't about to let this man box Sofia's ears, or worse, the baby's, so he heaved the baby up and ran, trusting Sofia to have enough sense to follow. She did.

Only that wasn't the end of the mean man who didn't respect signora Bianchi's rules. And at first all he asked was why Jack wasn't in school.

"He's just a baby," Mrs. Bianchi answered (and she was Mrs. Bianchi in that moment. Sitting at her own kitchen table, she allowed the man in and spoke to him in English and Jack and Sofia spied on them from the stairs and it was all _wrong_).

The man had not been impressed with that answer.

"He looked at least six to me."

"He's five," said Mrs. Bianchi, and Jack wasn't entirely sure if she was lying, or if it was just another one of those things that she believed with all her heart no matter how many times she was told otherwise. At any rate, the man hadn't believed her. He wanted Jack's records.

She didn't seem to have Jack's records, whatever those were. She didn't seem to think them important, either.

"Your neighbor says the boy isn't one of yours. That you took him when his mother died."

"So what if I did?" demanded Mrs. Bianchi. "The bambino needed a mamma."

"There are rules for that sort of thing," answered the man. "_We_ protect children in _this_ country."

And Jack and Sofia weren't sure how, but clearly the man was being rude again because they could see Mrs. Bianchi's anger growing.

And that was the beginning of the end. It didn't happen overnight, not like Jack's arrival in the household, but there were late night talks between signora and signor Bianchi, and there was a woman who was much nicer than the man who came to visit, and then one day all of Jack's things were being tied up in a sack, and all ten of the Bianchis, from signor Bianchi down to the baby were hugging him, and signora Bianchi said (in Italian of course) "_Never forget where you came from_."

And in a nicer sort of world, the kind woman who'd come to talk to the family and explain why it was better this way, when they already had so many children to look after, and Jack needed schooling, and more along those lines, well, that was who would have come to collect Jack and bring him to his new home.

The world was neither kind nor cruel, though it felt a bit cruel in that moment, and it was the man who'd first boxed Jack's ear who was to take him. Jack had no idea where he was going, except that it was _away_, and he didn't quite dare to ask the man who'd grabbed him by the wrist and walked so swiftly that Jack had to half jog or risk being dragged.

The _where_ turned out to be the train station, which was new and exciting enough that Jack forgot about being scared, but stared with wide eyes at the great locomotives, and the bustle of the crowds, and everything.

On the train, the man shoved Jack's bag over their heads and sat Jack in his seat by the window while he took the aisle seat and, all in all, didn't seem nearly so mean as Jack had feared. Jack still didn't dare to speak to him, and the man didn't seem to care to speak to a child, so they sat in silence and Jack had the enjoyment of looking out the window and getting to _see_ as they started off down the track. It was so interesting and enjoyable, in fact, that it didn't quite occur to him that he was being taken very far away from everything he knew.

Then the man took out sandwiches from his briefcase, and he gave one to Jack.

"And what do you say?" the man asked, when Jack took his sandwich with a surprised sort of look. In fact, Jack rather thought the man the sort to eat in front of him and not offer a crumb, and finding otherwise had been surprising enough for him to forget his manners.

And then he was prompted and Jack opened his mouth and _couldn't find the right word_.

He knew the man wanted to be thanked, and he knew the word. He knew three words, in fact, but only one would do, and the other words crowded out the right one and, without quite meaning to, he sort of hunched down and covered his ear with his hand. He couldn't have said himself why he did it; all he knew was that he _had_ to speak and all the words that crowded in his head were _wrong_ and the right words slid away where he couldn't reach it.

"Don't you cover your ears when I speak to you!" the man said, growing angry, and he grabbed Jack's wrist and wrenched his hand back down. "Well, if you can't mind your manners like a good little boy then you don't get my good sandwich." And he snatched the food back.

Then he sort of gave Jack a look, and perhaps he was waiting for Jack to say something like 'sorry' and 'thank you for the nice sandwich', and perhaps he intended to give it back then. He waited in vain, though, because Jack looked down at his lap instead of at the man with his sandwich, and then Jack looked out the window and eventually the man gave up on him and ate his own sandwich and put the second one away.

Jack didn't miss it much, because he felt so unsettled that his stomach hurt and he wasn't hungry at all. After a bit, watching the countryside slide by soothed him, and the rest of the trip was quiet, and being on a train at all was almost enough to make up for the company.

Then they arrived at a small wooden platform that was nothing at all like the station back in London, and they were the only ones getting off. Jack had no idea where they were, except that there were trees and grass all around and a sort of dirt trail and no buildings. Jack had never been in a place so devoid of buildings; even parks had edges where you could see walls and roofs and the like.

It was really only in this moment that Jack came to understand what the train ride meant, and it was in a sort of daze that he was taken even further into the country (this time by car, and that should have been exciting except Jack was all excited out by that point). They went through a sort of town, and those were buildings, but it was all spread out and strange and it ended quite quickly and they went past fields, and there were cows, and then they came to quite a large house all made of stone and covered in ivy.

"Here we are," said the man, the first words he'd said towards Jack since the sandwich incident. "The Cottage." And had Jack known a bit more about the part of the world that wasn't London, he'd have been confused because the building was not at all like a cottage.

And the man told the young person driving the car to wait for him, and he took Jack by the wrist again and marched him up to the door much quicker than Jack would have liked to go on his own, for he was curious in spite of his upset stomach and he wanted to see. The man didn't care to see anything though, but walked right up to the door, and knocked.

And almost before Jack could get a feel for this strange house, he was standing before large woman who smiled at the man, then at Jack, as she shook their hands.

"I trust you had a pleasant journey," she said, to the man rather than to Jack. "It's so kind of you to bring the boy all the way from London."

"It is my duty," the man said, not sounding at all pleased at the compliment, and the woman stopped smiling quite so aggressively.

"Of course," she said, and then, "And I see you have his paperwork all ready. Yes, that seems to be in order. Will you be staying for supper…or perhaps for the night?" And Jack couldn't say why, because he words were all the right sort of words, but he didn't think she really wanted the man to stay.

"I return to London in two hours," the man answered. The woman looked pleased to hear that, but said, "That's too bad. We live simply here, but the countryside does have its charms. And it's so healthful and wholesome for the poor children."

"The paperwork is in order," said the man, "And I have seen to the child's arrival, so I will take my leave. Good day, Madame."

And the man left and Jack was alone with the woman, who in his head he now called 'Madame'.

"And that's _him_ gone," she muttered, and then she picked up the papers the man had left, glanced towards Jack, and said, "Let's see what we've got. Male, well that can't be helped, London born, worse and worse, you'll be a little thieving troublemaker, all the city boys are. Name of Jack…oh that is too bad. Another foreign mongrel, I see, with one of those ridiculous names no sensible Englishman can pronounce. I won't be having it; you'll be Jack Sharp while I have you, and be proud to answer to it. At least they had the sense to give you a proper first name. Age? No good, we've no beds to spare there. I'll stick you with the sixes; you look small enough."

All of this was said to herself more than to Jack, and it was not particularly pleasant to be talked about like that. Jack didn't answer back though, not even with a glare. He was still too unsettled and a bit confused. No one had told him where he was going, so he wasn't entirely sure he'd actually arrived, and he didn't understand any of the last bit of what she said (except, that it was an insult).

"And what do we have here?" Madame said, and she snatched his small bundle that he'd so carefully carried all that way and she poured everything out onto her desk. The clothes (which were mostly what was in the bundle) she tossed to the floor, saying "No good; we've got a uniform." The small doll that even Jack hadn't known was there, but recognized as having belonged to Sofia, she sneered at. "Into dolls are we?" she asked. "We'll cure you of _that_." And that was tossed aside as well. The food Signora Bianchi had carefully packed away for him, she sniffed suspiciously, declared some sort of foreign poison, and dumped into a waste bin. Finally, there was nothing left. She looked disappointed.

"No jewelry from your late mother?" she asked, and her lips sort of smiled but her eyes didn't. "No father's pocket watch? No clever mechanical toys? No books? Of course, no books, you don't even know what schooling is."

Seeing her _smile_ while she said such things made Jack feel funny, like something was very wrong and he wanted to be as far from the woman as possible. He never thought he'd miss that mean man, but now he wished with all his heart that he'd come back and take him away. And he didn't dare to explain that she was wrong about the schooling. He had been…before. When he lived with his mama. Then he lived with signora Bianchi and she never sent him to school and everything had been so new that he had never even questioned why he no longer went until the man had shown up to ask.

She didn't give him his bag back. She rang a bell on her desk instead, and teenager came in at once.

"This is Jack Sharp," said Madame. "Take him to the sixes and get him settled."

"Yes, Ma'am," said the boy, and then he turned around and walked back out the door.

"Well? Go on," said Madame to Jack, and it was only then that Jack realized he was meant to follow. He did so, hearing her mutter, 'little mongrel,' to herself as he went. And so began a new chapter in Jack's life at the Cottage.


	2. Chapter 2

Jack half ran after the other boy, who was putting his longer legs to great use and was almost around the corner. This mode of walking continued until they'd walked up a narrow staircase to the first floor, and then all at once the boy stopped walking and turned to look Jack up and down.

"Hello, Jack Sharp," said the boy. "Welcome to the Cottage." And he held out his hand for Jack to shake. Jack did so, saying nothing, this time not so much out of a loss of words as confusion. Everyone in this place seemed to change personas like changing hats; Madame smiled like she was glad to see him, then took his things and spoke over him in a cruel and confusing way. Now this older boy first ignored him, then turned around and acted like the friendliest sort of greeter imaginable!

"You can call me, Donald; everyone does. It's MacDonald, actually, and I'll answer to either, but don't let the Witch catch you if you try MacDonald." Then, catching Jack's wide-eyed look, he added, "And don't call her the Witch unless your certain of at least an entire floor between you and she. She's 'Ma'am' or 'Madame' to her face. Her name is Miss Smith, really. At least…I've heard it's really something like Schmidt, but you didn't hear that from _me_. She's mostly harmless; she's too lazy to go after us herself you know, but if you get her angry enough she'll lock you in the basement. The thing to know about our lovely director is, she's fuller of hate than a demon from Hell, and she steals our benefits, we all know it, but she hates us enough we hardly see her. Is Jack Sharp really your name?"

Jack shook his head, still feeling a bit in a daze, especially after the 'demon from Hell' which had shocked him. If any of the mothers in his little neighborhood in London had heard someone say that, boy or man, their own child or no, the one doing the saying would have gotten a scolding hot enough to scorch his ear, and, depending on the matron, possibly something worse than a scolding.

The self-named Donald looked Jack up and down, not exactly like Madame had, but in the same assessing sort of way.

"Can you speak?" Donald asked. "We once got a deaf one and it took us a month to figure it out. The witch just said she was stupid, and it wasn't in her paperwork so she refused to believe it."

This time Jack nodded his head. Donald continued to look at him for a moment, then shrugged.

"This way then, and I'll get you settled. The dormitories are divided by age, and then again by boys and girls, and they're all overfull. All us boys are in this wing here. The Witch gets more money per child, so she takes in as many as they'll send her and she tells them we've all the room in the world. She probably asked money for more beds too, but _we'll_ never see them."

And he led him to a door with the number six painted and opened the door. It was not, as one might supposed, inbetween five and seven. They passed a door marked ten, and the one across said three. Donald didn't show those rooms though, but led him straight into six. There were ten beds in the room, narrow ones with thin mattresses, though the room was large enough for twice as many. The Bianchis weren't rich and their beds weren't much better but these looked…colder somehow. Perhaps it was the way each one was an island unto itself in the large room. Perhaps it was the way each only had one under sheet and one thin blanket. The room was almost entirely bare except for the beds. Each bed had a small sort of chest at its foot with two drawers, and that was the only furniture. There were no toys left on the floor, no bookcases, no shoes strewn about. The only clothing at all were neat white bundles on each bed. Closer inspection showed them to be nightshirts. Most beds had two sets on them. Some only had one.

"You'll need the uniform, I suppose," said Donald as he lead Jack towards one of the few beds with only one nightshirt. "But this can be your bed. Everyone is doubled up, you see. It's not too bad for you little ones, I suppose, but it does get hard on us older ones. I'm almost aged out myself, and I have some privileges, but some of my mates have taken to sleeping on the floor just to have their own space."

Jack sat down on the bed, finding it just as thin and hard as it looked.

"And don't think you can't switch about, if you make friends with someone or just have a better fit; the Witch cares that you stay the night in your room but she doesn't care which bed. Now, it's the custom when a new one comes in to send him to the nurse first thing. The Witch doesn't care about us but she doesn't want us all dying on her so she makes sure the basics are kept up. After, assuming you don't have lice or some horrid disease, I'm supposed to give you a sound whipping to remind you to be good."

Then Donald clapped Jack on the shoulder, still smiling in the same friendly sort of manner, while Jack continued to stare up at him with wide eyes. "Don't worry; she never checks that it was done. We just _tell_ her it was, and if you can remember to moan a bit around her I'd be obliged. Now…let's get you to the nurse and I'll go find you a uniform while she's busy with you."

And Donald started off again, this time at a much more reasonable stride that didn't have Jack running to catch up. In fact, he paused at the door to make sure Jack was following.

"I suppose this is all a bit much," said Donald as they strolled along, past mismatched numbers that ran everything from two to sixteen. "Most new ones have a million questions. You quiet ones always worry me. I won't ask why you're here, it won't be for your health and anyway, that's your business...but it will be alright. Honest. It's not easy here, but we get everything we need and we take care of each other. You'll see. Now, here we are; the nurse."

Donald had led Jack down some stairs and into another wing. This door he knocked on first, then pushed open when no one answered. It opened on a large room full of curtains. The ones pushed back showed beds, much the same as the one Jack had just left except without the nightshirt, and the sheets looked whiter. Donald went past all this to another door at the far end, then knocked again.

"Yes," said a woman's voice from the other side, and Donald opened this door too. It opened on a sort of office where a woman in a blue dress was sitting and reading a magazine. She set the magazine aside to look at them.

"It isn't another stomach complaint, is it? I've _told_ Cook he has to properly boil the chicken."

"Not this time," answered Donald. "This is a new one. Madame wants a full report on him, I'd guess."

"Never told me about a new one," she grumbled. "Did she at least send his papers with you?" And she looked Jack up and down. Jack, it must be confessed, was half hiding behind Donald. He didn't have much experience with nurses or doctors. In fact, the last doctor he'd seen had come to see to his mama.

"Just told me to settle him with the sixes," Donald answered with an apologetic shrug. "Called him Jack Sharp. That's all I know."

"I've _told_ her I need their records. Has he even had his smallpox vaccine? And I suppose _he_ won't know anything. Well boy? Are you vaccinated? Are you diseased?"

This last, said to Jack, was confusing and alarming enough that he didn't know how to answer, even if his words didn't still feel a bit trapped inside him. The nurse stared hard at him for a moment, before speaking to Donald again.

"He can speak, can't he? You said he was six? He's not another deaf one, is he?"

"He's just a quiet one," Donald answered, just the slightest bit defensively, as he put his hand on Jack's shoulder. This was made slightly harder as Jack was still a bit behind him, and Donald had to move himself to shift Jack in front.

"One of _those_," said the nurse, and not very happily. "Makes my work harder. Well, be a good boy, Sean, and get those records. And better get his uniform, while you're at it."

Donald gave Jack's shoulder a comforting squeeze and then he took off, leaving Jack alone with the nurse. She wasn't looking at him anymore, but going into a cabinet at her back, rummaging about for some papers.

"Here we go, new assessment. Basics first, I suppose. Your name is Jack Sharp, and you're six years old?"

Jack shook his head. The nurse stared hard at him.

"Well then, first things first. Name?"

"Jack," Jack answered, and it startled even him to hear his own voice after all those hours of silence.

"So he _can_ speak," said the nurse. And she wrote down 'Jack Sharp' on the paper in front of her, and before Jack could try to explain about the 'Sharp', she said "Age?"

Jack didn't answer this time, still caught on his name. The nurse made an annoyed sort of huff, then said, "Simpler then. Are you six, Jack?"

"No," Jack managed to answer, out loud this time. "I think I'm seven."

"You _think_ you're seven," said the nurse, not impressed with this answer. "I don't suppose you know what year you were born?"

Jack stared at her, this time because he didn't know the answer.

"I'll just leave it until I get the paperwork down," she decided. "Weight and height next. Then the fun bit and I'll see if you've any passengers about you." She didn't sound like she thought it would be fun, though. She led Jack out of her office through yet another door and into a funny sort of room that was part office and part bedroom. It had a scale and a sort of stick that marked heights, which is what Jack had to do first, after taking off his shoes.

"Average height, on the lower end," she muttered to herself, "assuming you _are_ seven. What is Madame thinking; she's always going on about filing proper paperwork then sends every new one down here without a single page of it. Slightly underweight. Nothing serious. Take off your shirt, Jack, I need to check your back, and then I'll have a listen to your heart and lungs."

Jack did as directed, though it was slightly chilly in the room. He wasn't particularly modest, but he'd never had a stranger tell him to take off his shirt before and it was weird. Everything so far had been a bit strange, though, and it seemed better to do as he was directed. At any rate, the nurse was kind enough to tell him what she was doing, and she did exactly as she said. She made him bend over and she felt his spine, and then she got out a funny sort of tool and listened to his heart and lungs.

Then she had a look in his eyes and ears and she checked his temperature. Finally, she made him sit very still while she ran a comb through his hair.

"A bit of a tangle," she muttered. "But surprisingly free of passengers. Whoever had you before knew something about cleanliness. I think we can skip the shave. Well, that's us done, at least until I have your records."

They came out to find Donald already waiting, a bundle of clothes and a folder in hand. The nurse grabbed the folder, waving for Jack to take the clothes.

"Go back through and change in there," she told him. "I'll finish with this." So Jack went back into the exam room and looked to see what uniform he'd been given. There was a complete set, including underwear and white shirt, blue shorts with suspenders, and a blue jacket. The shirt was a bit large on Jack, and the shorts too loose, and the jacket came up short at the wrists. In fact, Jack saw himself in the room's mirror and, for perhaps the first time since leaving the Bianchi household, laughed out loud.

There were no shoes or socks, so Jack put on his own pair. Then, a bit reluctantly, he opened the door to show himself dressed.

"I see you managed alright," said Donald. "Some of the young ones don't know how to work the buttons."

"And if anyone should ask you again," said the nurse, "You _have_ had your smallpox vaccine as a baby. And you are seven for another three months or so, at which point you will be eight. That woman! Jack Sharp, a sixer, indeed! I'd like to Sharp her, so help me!" And still muttering to herself, she shooed them out the door, only stopping them a moment to say, "Just leave those old clothes on the chair there, Jack. You won't need them, and by the time you leave here you'll have outgrown them anyway."

So Jack followed Donald back out into the hall, feeling very silly in his new clothes. Luckily, Jack had never minded feeling silly; in fact it was rather nice to have something to smile about again.

"I didn't think you had a smile," Donald remarked as they went along. "I've never seen a visit to the nurse agree with someone so. She didn't slip you some odd medicine, did she?"

"No," answered Jack, who was surprised to discover he seemed to have found his tongue at last. "She looked me all over and said I didn't need a shave and now I've these funny clothes. They don't look like yours."

"No, they wouldn't," said Donald, still looking a bit mystified at the change that had come over Jack. "That's what the younger boys wear."

"It isn't the best fit," Jack said, trying to look at himself and almost tripping. He tugged at the sleeves to his jacket and failed to pull them down further.

"If this one doesn't fit, well, perhaps the next will be better. The uniform isn't really yours, see, they're all the same except for size so on laundry day the old is taken and a new is given and you're lucky if it's your size exactly. I did try to size you up, but perhaps I didn't guess exactly right."

"This one is fine," said Jack. "I don't mind it. Do I keep my shoes, then? There weren't any that you gave me."

"That's Madame again," said Donald in a low voice, slightly more cautious due to being on the same floor as her, though her office was far off yet. "We're all meant to have new shoes every six months, as needed…but we don't get them until our shoes won't go on in the slightest or fall apart utterly. And by 'new' I mean you get a pair someone else has outgrown. She lets us keep the shoes we come in because it saves her some. I think she'd let us keep the clothes too…but she likes the look of us all in uniform. It's better if the inspector arrives, too. Oh, she has all sorts of tricks for him. She'll lead him a merry romp about the school, having us trade about, so he never notices we double up on the beds and the like. And we have the best meals on those days, I can tell you."

"She sounds horrible," said Jack with a frown. "If she hates us so, why does she look after us at all?"

"The money, I suppose," Donald said. "She's always begging extra money from the mayor, or from charities, saying we need new shoes and good food and medicines and books and beds and, oh, a hundred other things. And then she pockets all the money herself and keeps us on as little as she can manage without actually killing us off. She doesn't dare let us start dying on her, see, and she locks us up wherever she can so we can't run off either. If we started dying, there'd be an investigation for sure. And speaking of short rations, it's off to tea with us now."

"Aren't you forgetting something?" asked Jack, and Donald looked at him in amazement.

"What?" he asked.

"Aren't you supposed to whip me to remind me to be good?"

"Well aren't you over your silent spell," Donald said with a bit of a laugh. "I suppose I should. You know, some of the little ones ask for just one lick or two…they're afraid they'll forget to moan otherwise. Shall I?"

"I can moan quite well on my own, I think," answered Jack.

"Come on, then. We all dine together in a big hall off the kitchen; it's in the other wing. You'll get to meet the other sixers. And…and don't worry much if you _are_ seven…I think at least one of your new roommates is actually eight, so you won't be alone there."

Then, just before they entered what must be the eating hall he'd talked about because Jack could hear the low rumble of noise that generally came from lots of children brought together into one room, Donald paused again. He looked at Jack like he wanted to say something, but for a moment, he didn't seem to know what.

"Just…I know it's a sore spot for boys but…if anyone asks, say you're six," he said at last. "Only, it's better that way. If we're lucky, Madame will just send you out for a whipping, a whipping like the one I just gave you. But if you get her mad…you just don't want to, is all."

And he looked so anxious about it, that Jack, who was already growing a bit nervous at the prospect of meeting his fellow roommates, whatever their ages, felt the remains of his smile slide off his face, and he nodded solemnly in return.

Then Donald pushed through the doors and Jack followed after.

Up to then, Jack had been told half a dozen times that the Cottage was overcrowded; but up to then he hadn't seen a single other child aside from Donald, who barely counted being, in Jack's eyes, the same thing as an adult.

Donald had not been joking about the overcrowding. There were ten long tables and one short one on a sort of dais. Five of the tables seated girls and five seated boys. They had benches for this purpose, which was convenient, as everyone had to squeeze together so tightly to fit that chairs would never have done. Even as it was, some of the children were half in each other's laps, and the children on the ends had to sort of push with their feet against the table legs to stop from being pushed right off the bench.

"And this is just the five and ups," Donald said cheerfully. "Tables go by twos on either side; Here are the five and sixes, opposite the seven and eights. I'm up at the dais myself, a privilege they tell me, as I get to eat with Madame…when she deigns to eat with us and doesn't send for her food. Here, Roger, Jimmy, budge up, we've a new one."

And without much more warning for any of them, Donald picked Jack up and set him down on the bench between the two boys he'd just named. There wasn't really room in the slightest, and Jack was more on the boys' laps than the bench, and he had to grab the table before he lost his balance as his feet didn't seem to touch the floor.

"Do be gentle with the new lamb," Donald said cheerfully. "See you later, Jack." And he left Jack alone with his new roommates. It was hard to get much of an impression of them when they sat all in a row, and him still half on top to two closest to him.

"Budge over, before he smothers me," said the boy Donald had called Roger, but not towards Jack. He was shoving at the boy on his other side.

"Budge yourself, there's nowhere to budge," the boy answered, shoving back, and causing a sort of chain reaction that almost had the boy at the end of the row on the floor.

"Least he's a small one," said a boy across the table. "We once had a young whale sat on us, and if he was younger than nine I'll eat my hat."

"You don't have a hat," Roger answered, clearly not appreciating Jack's small size in the least.

"Because I ate it," the boy across answered promptly, gaining a small laugh from the others.

Then a bell rang and, with surprising suddenness, all talking and shoving ceased, though in the ensuing silence Jack did hear the boy on his other side whisper, "Oh no, _she's_ decided to come down."

Then everyone was scrambling to stand up, and Jack almost fell again when he was half pushed from two laps, except one of the boys was kind enough to grab his arm to help steady him.

"We always stand for prayer," Roger whispered. "'Specially if _she's_ here." And then he clearly didn't dare say another word but clamped his lips together and stood as straight as he could. Jack tried to copy him. He couldn't help turning his head though, to see Madame in the doorway. She had her odd smile on her face as she looked from table to table. Her eyes settled briefly on Jack, and he could hardly breathe, but then they moved on and she started to walk across the hall for the dais.

The dais was behind Jack, and she walked right past him on the way. And just as she was about to pass, Jack felt a sudden sharp kick to his shin.

"Oh!" he cried, as much from surprise as pain. It wasn't very loud, but in the silence of the room, and with Madame just behind him, Jack felt it was the loudest sound he'd ever made, and was certain any moment he was going to be dragged away to be locked in the basement, or whipped, or something horrible.

He heard Madame pause behind him.

"Feeling the pain of Donald's fine welcome, are we?" asked her voice, and it didn't sound angry. In fact, Jack rather thought she might be amused. "I hope you take the lesson to heart and remember to be a good boy." And she went on to the dais.

Then everyone bowed their heads and recited a prayer together, Jack listening rather than speaking while trembling a bit where he stood. He could feel the weight of her stare behind him, and realized that, for the entire meal, he'd have to have her at his back.

Despite having had nothing since breakfast time, Jack found he wasn't very hungry. It wasn't just Madame at his back, either. One of his new roommates had just kicked him. On purpose. And they waited until _she_ was behind him to do it. He thought it was Jimmy, at least it was his side, but they were so tight together it could have been Roger.

What sort of horrible place had he been brought to?

That the meal turned out to be boiled chicken and cabbage (and more cabbage than chicken) did not help his hunger in the slightest.

"Eat," whispered Roger in a voice so light Jack almost could have imagined it. "Even if you're ailing. Even if you hate it. No matter what, you eat."

"Or give it to one of us," Jimmy said, his voice soft and mostly covered by the loud clinking of spoons around them (for spoons were all they were given to eat with). "So long as it's gone when they check."

Feeling a bit lost and a bit alone and a bit faint, Jack took up a bit of cabbage and swallowed it down.

Author's Note: Some people may have noticed by now, I've never actually given Jack a last name (except, of course, that it clearly isn't 'Sharp'). This is partly because movie Jack doesn't seem to have a last name (a wiki said his full name was Jackson Hunter Shapiro at one point, but wikis aren't always the most accurate and the last time I double checked, I couldn't find the mention again). So...all the times he 'accidentally' gets called Banks were at least in part from my avoidance of naming his last name. (and in part because, well, funny/cute). I probably should decide on one soon...if only so he can rebel against Sharp with his real name...except I don't know it and I'd hate to make one up only to learn the real name later.

At the very least, I'd like to finish reading the books just to be sure he isn't there (and THAT was a surprise, finding out where they got the name William Weatherall Wilkins. I mean, who goes, oh, the FIRST PERSON TO FLY WITH THE BALLOONS and decides he's a villain? except my book has the middle name as 'wetherill' so perhaps not exactly the same person?) I never read more than the first book as a child; didn't even know there were more, but I'm making up for it now, so if there is a Jack I suppose I'll find him. Though if someone who's read the books through does know that Jack is there and/or knows his last name, I'd love for you to share it.


	3. Chapter 3

After the meal the children stood together and, table by table, brought their dishes to the kitchen, and then filed out together to some new destination. Jack was in line behind Roger and with Jimmy at his back, and neither spoke to him. In fact, the only noise was of many shoes against the floor. Jack had never in his life been so surrounded by boys his own age and not heard a single hum of conversation, a single stifled giggle, a single attempt at shoving or whispering or anything of the kind.

He didn't know if they were always so well behaved or if it was because they were still trying to avoid the attention of the witch. She hadn't followed them out, though. She was still dining on a large piece of cake as Jack had walked passed her. He hadn't dared to look of course, but he could smell the rich sugary smell as he went by. Donald was still at her table too, though he didn't seem to have anything more to eat. Jack hadn't dared to look at him either.

His fellow age mates stayed in line as they filed out the door, and then the front of the line split away as the five year olds went somewhere else and his own group marched towards a door, and then outside in the cool evening air and into a vegetable garden.

As if a signal had been given, though Jack noticed none, all the boys suddenly relaxed and a sort of noise erupted as they all let out their pent up fidgets and words in one go.

"Thank goodness that's over," Roger said, lifting his arms high into the air. "I hate it when _she_ decides to join us."

Jimmy, for some reason, did the opposite; dropping down to sit on his heels while hugging his knees, though he sort of hummed in agreement. Other boys said other things too, but Jack didn't have enough ears to follow all their conversations, except the majority just seemed relieved. Then Roger turned towards Jack.

"It won't always be that horrible, I promise," he said. "Now we have chores. Fives take care of the chickens, and us sixes are in the small vegetable garden, and the sevens are in the big garden, and eights look after the cows and the nines are in the kitchen and tens are odd jobs and after that…well, I suppose it depends on what you're good at. Anyway, we have it easy; the girls all have indoor cleaning or needlework."

"Easy, except for the rain," muttered Jimmy, still crouched down on his heels. "Or cold. Or heat. Girls get to stay indoors." Roger took no notice of him but went on talking.

"And if you stay long enough to be fourteen, you start to get to be in charge, and that's the best job of all."

"Says you," said a voice that was much deeper than any of Jack's new companions, and Jack startled to discover another teenager had joined them. "Like herding cats, keeping you lot in check. So, you're the new boy, then? Call me Mr. Henderson. Or sir. Do your work and we'll get along. Now, why are you lot just sitting around? You know your jobs, do them! Lewis, show Sharp what to do."

The teenager was shorter than Donald, and looked rather less friendly, but Jack had already learned not to trust first appearances. Mr. Henderson hadn't done anything untoward to Jack yet, anyway, or tried to belittle him, so Jack cautiously hoped he'd turn out to be all right. Determined to not make a bad first impression himself, Jack looked around for 'Lewis' who was to show him what to do, and tried not to think too hard on the 'Sharp' and how it made him feel a bit like when signora Bianchi scolded his mama for teaching him bad Italian, only worse.

"He means me," Roger said, holding out a hand. "Roger Lewis."

"Jack…" Jack answered, taking Roger's hand, but then came the moment he was supposed to say 'Sharp' and that was a lie and there was a rather long moment of silence when Jack knew he was supposed to say something and didn't. In the end Roger turned, still holding Jack's hand, and tugged him along to a small shed where other boys were already fetching out shovels and hoes and watering cans.

"Jack Lamb, I should think," said Jimmy, who had gone with them, "Isn't that what Donald called him?"

Jack wasn't sure if Jimmy said that to be mean or if he said it to tease or if he really thought Jack's name was 'Lamb', but Roger laughed and Jack didn't know what to do with his face and looked at the ground. Was Jimmy the one who had kicked him? Or was it Roger. Roger seemed nicer, more friendly at least, but that didn't mean he couldn't be cruel too.

They worked in the garden until the sun was almost completely gone, and then they washed off the dirt from their hands and faces from a cold bucket of water. Mr. Henderson made sure they did a thorough job too.

"Just look at you," he said with disgust to one of the smaller boys who Jack didn't know the name of yet. "Dirt behind your ears, dirt in your hair!" And the poor little fellow had his whole head dunked in the water courtesy of Mr. Henderson. He didn't hold him down, but he did make him scrub, and dunked him twice more before he was satisfied. The poor boy's teeth were chattering by the end and the small towel meant to dry him off was hardly adequate.

"Here," said Jack, offering his own small towel, though it was already rather damp and probably didn't help much. Jack had only had to scrub his hands, but Mr. Henderson had found his nails to be too dirty and Jack's fingers were numb by the time he was satisfied, and the small towel was damp through as he tried to rub warmth back into them. He didn't want to imagine what dunking his whole head would have been like.

"It was your own fault," Jimmy told the boy solemnly, even as he, too, offered his used towel to help. "If you didn't fling the dirt around so, you wouldn't be such a mess after."

Roger didn't offer his towel, but he'd had to scrub his hands up to his elbows, and his face, and his towel would have done even less good than Jack's after that.

Everyone clean, the water was dumped over the garden and they lined up again. Jack rather hoped it was bedtime, as early as it was, because he felt exhausted down to his soul. The morning in London felt a lifetime ago.

Instead, they were lead into a chapel where they once again had to squish together so tightly Jack could feel the wet boy shivering five bodies away, and then had to stand for half an hour of prayer.

Madame wasn't there. In fact, no adult was. At least, the teenagers still looked rather like adults to Jack, but even so he knew it was a bit odd to not have anyone older to look after them. Donald was one of the boys who led the prayers, and he gave Jack a friendly smile that Jack was too exhausted to really return but tried to anyway.

After prayer time, they filed out just as they had after meal time. The girls went in one direction and the boys in another. At last, Jack found himself returning to the room with the beds that Donald had shown him. He knew it was only a few hours ago, but it felt like it had happened the day before.

Jack stood between Roger and Jimmy and followed where Roger walked, once again in unnatural silence. It wasn't until they were alone in their dorm and the door was closed that some semblance of life returned to the children.

To Jack's alarm, he suddenly had the full attention of sixteen other boys. Not their full attention; two were having a mock battle and several were bouncing on their beds, and most were talking to each other, but they'd formed a definite ring around him, herding him towards the middle of the room.

"This is Jack," said Roger to his companions, throwing an arm over Jack's shoulder as though to say 'this is my friend'. Jack wasn't sure how he felt about that.

"Not another one," mumbled a voice from the crowd of boys, and Jack tried not to hunch up in on himself since there wasn't any place to hide, and anyway, he liked making new friends. He just…didn't like, perhaps, making so many new friends at once when he felt half asleep and like he still wasn't entirely sure where he was or where he was going to be next.

"Jack what?" other voices asked. "_Where is he from?" "Does he like snakes?" "What, no one likes snakes!" "I like snakes" "Kind of small isn't he? He's not another fiver stuck with us?" "Can't he talk?" "Did the witch steal his voice?" "She can't do that!" "I heard she did to this girl, and then turned her into a rabbit." "A rabbit?" "Donald called him a lamb." "Donald calls all us sixers lambs_."

"Hello, Jack," said the small boy whose hair was still damp, and he was the first one to speak directly to Jack instead of at him or about him. "My name's Octavius."

"A long one for such a little one," said Roger. "We call him Davy. Or Dusty, when we've been gardening."

"Nice to meet you, Octavius," Jack said, and somehow the words came easier when he was just answering someone else's introduction. "Do you _like_ being called Davy?"

"I don't mind. Better than Dusty anyway. Or Tavy…that just sounded silly. And Octavius sound a bit silly too…really."

'Tavy Baby' Jack distinctly heard someone in the crowd of boys whisper, followed by giggles, and he frowned. For the first time in his long, confusing trip that had gotten him here, Jack felt a spark of something that wasn't confusion or sadness or curiosity or really anything to do with himself. It wasn't _right_, making a little boy feel bad over his name.

"We don't say it to be mean," Roger was quick to say, clearly noting Jack's frown. "We mostly go by short names, here. Like…like we all have secret names only us boys know. You could be Lamb, if you like."

"And what do they call you?" Jack asked. Having secret names actually rather sounded like fun…but he was quite certain he did not want to have his secret name be 'Lamb'.

"We call him Roger," said Jimmy. "And we'll call you 'Jack'. And I'm Jimmy. And anyone calls Davy something for a joke will be sleeping under their bed tonight." That last was said to the room at large, but particularly towards Roger.

"I'm not afraid of you!" Roger shouted at Jimmy. "We're just teasing."

"Teasing is only fun when everyone is laughing," said Jack, and then Roger was glaring at _him_, like maybe they weren't friends after all. Jack didn't shrink away this time, though. It was nice having friends, but it wasn't nice when his friends were being mean. Roger didn't say anything more to Jack though, but turned his glare back on Jimmy.

"And you aren't so great, Jim Johnson!" Roger said. "You kicked Jack; I know it was you, and right when the witch walked by. You wanted to get us all locked in the basement!"

And Jack looked at Jimmy to see what he had to say to that. In fact, all the boys were looking back and forth between them, some looking worried, some eager.

"Did you kick Jack?" Octavius asked Jimmy, sounding betrayed and horrified.

"Of course I did," said Jimmy, which wasn't what Jack had expected. Even Roger looked surprised, like he didn't think Jimmy would admit to it. Jack thought perhaps he should feel angry. He didn't, though. He just felt small and lost and confused and sad.

"Why?" was all Jack said in the end. A silence fell over the boys as they waited to hear Jimmy's answer.

"Because you weren't groaning," answered Jimmy. "She likes it when we groan after a whipping. And if you don't groan, maybe she'd check there _was_ a whipping…and then you'd be in trouble and Donald'd be in trouble and we'd _all_ be in trouble. So I kicked you to remind you to groan."

"Oh, is that why?" Jack asked, greatly relieved. "I thought maybe you hated me."

And then to his utter horror and surprise, somehow the relief in just knowing _why_ caused him to burst into tears.

And the other boys gathered around him, and tried to wipe away his tears and hugged him and patted his head and said things like 'there, there' and 'it'll be all right' and 'be a man' and even though Jack didn't even know most of their names he started to feel he was among friends and that just seemed to make him cry harder, which was horrible, and he tried to say 'sorry' only it came out as 'lo siento' but no one seemed to notice.

"Here," said Jimmy after a bit, "We'd better get ready for lights out or we'll all get it. Everyone grab your bed mate. Davy, you better be with Jack."

"But…I wanted Jack," Roger said, who was currently hugging Jack and clearly had decided to still be friends after all. "Who put you in charge anyway?"

"I'm oldest," answered Jimmy. "And anyway, you can be one of the free groups tonight. There's only three now we have one more."

"Yes!" exclaimed Roger, clearly appeased by this. "No one to kick me or steal the blanket!"

"It's all right, Jack," said Octavius, while Jack tried in vain to stop his tears. "We all cry the first night. And a lot of other nights. Here's your night shirt. Your day clothes go on the stand here. We share this bed and…it fits best if we have our heads at opposite ends but…it's warmest if you curl up together, and I'm small and you're bigger but not as big as Jimmy or Roger and I think we'll fit."

And somehow Jack came to be dressed in the night shirt, and was curled up under a blanket huddled next to Octavius and he still didn't know where he was or who most of his companions were or…or anything, but he did feel warmer and even before someone came to turn off their lights and lock them in for the night he'd already slipped into a deep and exhausted sleep.


	4. Chapter 4

Jack awoke confused as he was dragged harshly from sleep by a loud voice, followed by his blanket being torn away.

It took him almost a full minute to understand where he was, and that the small body he was curled up next to wasn't little Sofia, and why he could hear boys grumbling their way into wakefulness and why someone who wasn't Giorgio was calling for him to rise and dress and why his head felt a bit achy, like it always did when he fell asleep crying.

He'd later learn that the boys were always roused at roughly six in the morning. As lights out was at eight in the evening, this was by no means unreasonable.

"Not that the witch cares that we get our beauty sleep," Jack heard more than one boy grumble, usually as a complaint at what they felt an unreasonably early bedtime. "She just wants us locked away as long as possible."

At any rate, Jack was a naturally early riser, and would likely have woken on his own well before the wakeup call if he hadn't been so fatigued by the day before. If any of the boys had known Jack better, they'd have been surprised, and likely amused, by his befuddled confusion to this first awakening. No one knew Jack that well yet, though, and the majority of the boys had similar looks, not all of them having actually gone to sleep at lights out or being inclined to be alert first thing in the morning.

"Good morning, Jack," said Octavius as he sat himself up and rubbed his eyes. To this Jack gave him such a long, confused stare that the boy felt compelled to add, "I'm Octavius. You can call me Davy."

Jack answered this second introduction by blinking his eyes quite a lot. Jack turned his head about to look all around the room, coming very slowly to recognize where he was.

"Alright there, Jack?" said the friendly voice of the one doing the rousing, just as though he hadn't yanked away his blanket moments before. "Survived your first night with us?"

Jack looked up at Donald without answering, though that didn't seem to disturb the young teen much, and he just gave him a smile and went on to make sure the other boys were getting up, helpfully pulling away blankets or, if this didn't cause a stir, yanking away pillows.

"We're lucky it's Donald," said Octavius to Jack. "Some of the others will overturn the mattress if you're too slow, and the worst of them will dump water on you to wake you up. Sometimes the mattress is still damp when we go to bed."

Then Octavius was out of bed and finding his clothes for the day and pushing Jack's to him. Feeling less confused, but with an unhappy feeling in the pit of his stomach, Jack accepted the clothes and changed. Somehow that feeling made it hard to answer his new friends out loud. It was jarring to go from sleeping, where he half imagined himself back in an old familiar bed, to this unfamiliar new place and it was hard to shake the feeling such an awakening inspired. Jack didn't have words for what he felt in that moment, only that it was unpleasant.

First thing in the morning, after dressing and having a chance to splash a bit of cold water on themselves and run a comb through their hair and, all in all, do all that is necessary upon first awakening to make oneself presentable and ready to face the day, the boys went together in a line after Donald. This time Jack followed after Octavius, though Roger had secured the spot behind him. Jimmy was further back, pushing at one of the trailing boys who still seemed half asleep.

Jack kept his eyes wide open as they walked. Yesterday still felt a bit like a dream, but upon this new awakening still in the same place he began to understand that this was where he was to stay and he wanted to know all about it. The Cottage, as it was called, was quite large for its name. It was three stories high, plus quite a large attic and a basement. Then there was the garden shed and the stables, the large vegetable garden, the smaller garden, and what was jokingly referred to as the 'rose garden' which was mostly trampled down grass and gravel and only sustained the hardiest weeds. The vegetable gardens were well maintained by necessity, considering how little of the money meant to go towards the children's food actually served that purpose, but flowers were a luxury and not one enjoyed by the witch.

"She's allergic," whispered some of the boys to each other. That was one of many theories as to what had happened to the roses the garden had once been named for.

"She cut them all down for an evil potion."

"She hates anything prettier than her."

"She cut them all down for herself and keeps them in her room."

"She gave them the evil eye and they all died."

Jack didn't learn much of any of this that morning. What he learned was how the dorms were at the highest level ("to stop us escaping out the windows") and all the boys were housed on the left side of the Cottage and all the girls were on the right. The Witch had her own chambers. No one knew exactly where, but it was rumored she slept on the first floor ("If she sleeps. I heard she turns into a cat at night and prowls around in the dark." "I heard she turns into a bat!"). He learned his way past the dining hall (but not inside it, to his disappointment; he also learned they weren't to break their fast until after morning chores) and outside.

"It's isn't her as makes us work first thing," Donald was kind enough to explain to Jack. "But we thought it best; cows get milked, eggs get collected, and breakfast gets cooked. She isn't too keen on hiring workers and cooks and teachers and a hundred other mouths to feed who expect pay into the bargain. We're pretty self-reliant. As long as things run smoothly, it doesn't trouble her how we go about it."

Jack felt ravenous by the time they did eat, in the same tight crowd as before. This time the meal was bread and milk.

"And I wish it were cheese," whispered Roger. "Only we'd have to make it ourself and no one wants to waste good milk trying."

He dared to whisper because the Witch wasn't present for their morning meal. Jack was told she rarely was.

"Still asleep…or getting over prowling all night."

There was a low hum of voices, which made the place feel much more natural than the evening before. The teenagers, who seemed to be in charge, only bothered to quiet the ones whose voices became loud enough to distinguish from a distance…which was mostly from Jack's table as it housed the youngest. Jack didn't have to be told to 'Keep it down or lose your bread'. He still hadn't quite found his voice that morning, and used his mouth solely for the purposes of eating the meal provided.

Jack was slightly surprised to find the breakfast meal rather nice, especially after the cabbage and chicken of the evening before. The bread was freshly baked and the milk couldn't have gotten much fresher, having come from the Cottage's cows. Jack could see why no one wanted to waste the milk, though. Spread between all of them, they each got half a cup.

"And watch your cup," Octavius whispered to Jack, while taking his own advince and carefuly clutching his own. "If it spills you don't get more. And some of the others will steal it if they can."

Slightly alarmed by this news, Jack prudently drank his milk first, though he didn't see any such sneaking in progress. Most of the boys around him held their milk for the end, or dunked their bread in it. The bread didn't have to be guarded; platters were set in the middle of the table, freshly sliced, and the children took what they wanted. There was enough that, at the end of the meal, some of the bread was taken away.

"We'll get the bread back again later." It was Roger imparting the news this time. "The girls like to bake a bunch in one go on baking day and it lasts as long as it lasts. You need the milk to dunk, if the bread lasts long enough, or it might chip a tooth."

"And don't get caught taking bread with you," Octavius whispered. "They say eat all you want, but if you take it, they say it's stealing and they punish you the same they do any thieves."

Jack, at that point, rather wanted to ask how thieves were punished, but also rather didn't want to know. Anyway, he was no thief.

After breakfast was morning lessons. Jack followed the line of sixers to their classroom, and was actually a bit shocked to discover they had an actual teacher. He was beginning to think the entire Cottage was run by teenagers, with the Witch at the head, and the nurse as a sort of backup.

"A new one, is it?" said the teacher as Jimmy led Jack to an empty seat towards the front that turned out to share the desk with Octavius. Jack was somewhat consoled that he'd share with a boy he'd sort of met and knew to be nice. Then Jimmy only just saved Jack from the rather horrible faux pas of actually sitting in his new seat by grabbing his elbow. Jimmy, Jack was beginning to think, was rather in the habit of herding the others around and keeping them out of trouble. He was the tallest of them, and Jack wouldn't be surprised if he learned that Jimmy was the eight year old stuck among the sixers. He couldn't ask, of course, especially just then while the teacher looked sternly on, but Jack wondered.

The teacher looked rather like all teachers Jack had met in the past…neatly attired, stern features that commanded respect, a pocket watch on a chain in the pocket, graying hair, and much bigger than Jack. Even the smaller teachers tended to exude a sort of presence, and this one had it in spades, as well as being on the tall and slightly portly side.

The best teachers Jack had had also had a bit of a twinkle in their eyes that spoke of hidden pleasures and curiosity and a real interest in their subject and their students. The twinkle was missing from this man's eyes. Having those stern, spiritless eyes turned on him, Jack was quite certain that he would prove to be one of the worst sort…the sort that hates questions and secretly enjoys their power over children, especially when that power can be wielded with a ruler.

"And of course no one thought to inform me," the man continued, still staring at Jack but clearly speaking to himself. "No school records, not even a name. Well, boy, stand up straight" (Jack was, in fact, already as straight as an arrow from nerves, but Jack would learn this was just something the teacher spat out from time to time, like a sort of greeting) "Tell me your name, age, and how far along in school you are."

Jack opened his mouth…and nothing came out.

"Speak when you are asked a question, boy!" the teacher ordered sternly, and Jack wanted to. Only he wanted to tell the truth and he knew he couldn't and he didn't even know what he was supposed to answer for how far along he had gotten in school…because the Witch thought he hadn't gone at all and if he said he had would that get him in trouble?

"His name is Jack Sharp, sir," Jimmy said for him. "And he is six years old. And I don't believe he's ever been to school."

"I asked for Mr. Sharp to speak," the teacher answered, and Jack didn't know how Jimmy didn't quail under the clear reprimand, but the boy only seemed to stand up taller. Then the eyes were on Jack again. "Well, Sharp? Are you going to answer, or do I need to show you what happens to rude little boys who can't answer their betters when they ask them to?"

The entire classroom was utterly silent, waiting for Jack to answer. His heart felt heavy as it beat hard in his chest and his breath came quickly and breaking the silence of the classroom felt utterly impossible and he knew he was going to get that whipping Donald never gave or have his hand hit or anyway, something horrible and painful and he couldn't…

Octavius stepped on his foot. Hard. Jack sort of yelped, and then, as though all he'd needed to speak was for the silence to be broken, he spewed out the proper words in one quick burst.

"Jack Sharp, age six, and was a first year before…before mi mamá murió."

At first, the teacher merely looked astonished at the sudden answer…but that was quickly overshadowed by a disapproving glare.

"What was that last gibberish?" he demanded. "Here we speak the King's English."

Jack didn't know how to answer that, but it turned out that an answer wasn't wanted. The teacher, still grumbling to himself, turned his attention to the rest of the class.

"Stand up straight, the lot of you!" he ordered, and his class endeavored to force their spines into arrows. "Well…I suppose that's the best that can be hoped for from a classroom of castoffs and miscreants…but I'll make proper men of you yet, see if I don't. You may be seated, and start on your slates. I've written the problems on the board. Mr. Sharp!"

Jack, it must be admitted, took a moment to recognize that he was the one meant. It was only for this slight delay that he didn't leap out of his skin just as he'd slowly allowed his heartbeat to settle while he looked about and tried to figure out where the 'slate' that his new teacher spoke of might be. He did realize he was called when the teacher walked up to his desk.

"When I call your name, I except you to stand up and give me your attention, Mr. Sharp," he sternly admonished, and Jack did so, very much ill at ease. He still didn't know what to expect from this new authority, and that was almost worse than if he'd known for sure he was about to receive a whipping.

The teacher didn't mention punishment, though, and as soon as he had Jack doing what he wished, his face even lost some of its sternness, though having all that severe attention solely on him still made Jack quake.

"You will go with Mr. Johnson to receive your school supplies. I expect the two of you to be prompt. Johnson, here is the key to the supply closet…and I will be checking your pockets when you return so do not even think about pilfering extra chalk."

And to Jack's rather great relief, he was allowed to leave the classroom, albeit briefly.

At first Jimmy just strode swiftly down the hall, leaving Jack to half jog to catch up, and neither spoke to the other. Jack, in fact, found Jimmy a bit confusing. He couldn't quite figure out if Jimmy liked the other boys and so looked out for them…or just liked avoiding trouble and didn't like the other boys, or at least, didn't like Jack.

Once they were in the supply closet (which was actually a small room, and mostly full of broken school supplies and ratty, damaged looking schoolbooks), Jimmy turned to Jack and actually smiled.

"You don't have to be scared of Master Berring," Jimmy said. "He sounds fierce…but the worst punishment he ever gives is lines or standing in the hallway. Well, he did slap Roger's hand once with a ruler…but he tired of it after only a few hits and decided he'd made his point. Mind, Roger did carry on for about a week after, but I don't think it could have hurt for more than an hour. By the way, it might have been better if you said you never had schooling…he'll have expectations now."

"But I did have schooling," Jack answered, and was rather alarmed to realize he was about to start crying. Only…only he hated lying, and schooling was the one thing he felt he could tell the truth about, and he didn't like grownups glaring at him and he didn't like how his own tongue seemed to betray him and his mama's language was not gibberish. He didn't know what he felt…angry or sad or confused or scared. He just felt it very strongly.

"Hey…I know it's hard being new," said Jimmy. "But you'll learn; we all did. Just…it's best if you do answer right away…in English."

"I know," answered Jack, swallowing back the tears with all his might. "I just couldn't. I don't know why."

"Well…if you are going to cry, do it now. Better than in class where everyone can see…and Master Berring hates crybabies worse than anything. He'd rather you stand up to him, no matter how angry he acts."

"I'm not going to cry," Jack answered, which was yet another lie, albeit an unintentional one, because almost immediately he was. He didn't even see what all Jimmy gathered for him…some books that weren't completely ruined, a slate that was mostly whole, a ruler that had been broken and glued back together neatly enough that it still had its edge, and some chalk.

"And look…he can check my pockets and he won't find anything," Jimmy said, and Jack managed to swallow down his tears enough to be astonished when Jimmy tucked a bit of red chalk down his sock.

"But…" Jack choked out, slightly worried that Jimmy intended for Jack to do that too…and it was stealing…wasn't it? Should Jack applaud the act of rebellion or scorn the act of delinquency? Jimmy didn't try to push any on Jack, though, just smiled, like they were friends sharing a secret. And this surprise distracted Jack enough that he finally did manage to swallow down his tears.

"Better? I'm always better after a bit of a cry on a bad day," said Jimmy. "Here…use this to wipe your face and we better go."

Jack took what looked to be the remains of an old apron (for some reason, there was an entire basket of old aprons…for the girls' sewing practice as it happened, but Jack had no way of knowing that) and he wiped his face, but suspected he still looked red and teary. It was better than nothing. And as Jimmy moved to lead them back into the hall, Jack felt comfortable enough with the other boy to finally ask, "How old are you really? I'm eight in three months…the nurse told me."

"If you want to call yourself almost eight, then I suppose I'm almost nine," Jimmy answered, "But when we're in the hall I'm six and so are you and you better not forget it."

It felt less like a lie and more like a secret between them, and Jack smiled and followed Jimmy back to the classroom.

Schoolwork turned out not to be as horrible as Jack had feared. It wasn't brilliant…as Jack had suspected, their teacher didn't care for questions and he seemed to delight in finding the student who couldn't answer his questions (he looked seriously disappointed when he asked Jack to read aloud from his lesson book, and Jack was able to do it…Jack had always loved reading and kept it up even outside of school…just not the sort of books teachers tended to call proper reading). It wasn't as horrible as he feared either. Parts were dull and boring, parts were engaging enough he didn't notice if he was bored or not, like while doing maths, and parts were horribly difficult (geography was not an area Jack excelled at), but parts were actually enjoyable (mostly the bits that involved reading). It was school. School inside the same house he now lived in, but still school. And Jimmy was right…Jack never saw the teacher hit anyone no matter how he glared or bellowed or yelled. He did make Roger stand in a corner for whispering, and he made poor Octavius write a hundred lines for messing up his grammar work, but no one got hit.

Their afternoon meal broke up lessons. They had it in the classroom, and it seemed that rules were slightly looser then because their teacher calmly ate his own meal (much nicer than their's) and didn't seem inclined to care much that the boys were whispering to each other and giggling.

The meal was cabbage again, which most of the boys grumbled over and said it should be pulled from the gardens and replaced with something nicer…like…oh…strawberries or jelly beans. Of course, there was also the same bread as wasn't eaten for breakfast, which was still fresh enough to be good, and a very small sliver of cold chicken, which was eaten too quickly to incite much comment as the cabbage got.

"Jelly beans don't grow from plants," Jimmy pointed out, not to be mean, just, he seemed to like to be exact on things.

"They're beans, aren't they?" Roger argued with him. "So they should grow like beans."

"They're sugar and…and other things mixed together," Jimmy said.

"They're our gardens, aren't they?" said Jack, somewhat thoughtfully, for the idea of a jelly bean garden ignited wonderful ideas in his head. "We take care of them. So why couldn't we plant interesting things in them? Like…sugar cane, and then we could make jelly beans. Or…coconuts and bananas. Those are plants. Or…oh, sunflowers. A hundred different flowers, and then we could have bees and honey."

"Bees sting," Octavius said, sounding rather nervous and doubtful of the idea. "But…but it would be nice to grow only good tasting vegetables. I like carrots."

"Not the way they cook them," Roger complained. "They turn them to mush. Carrots are really only good raw."

"England isn't the right climate for sugar cane or bananas." Jimmy pointed out. "Those are tropical. And flowers aren't useful in a vegetable garden."

"What about the rose garden?" Roger said. "It's supposed to have flowers."

"We don't want bees, do we?" Octavius asked.

"Bees aren't so bad," Jack said, with the confidence of a city boy who very rarely ran across them. "And honey is lovely."

"You better finish your cabbage," Jimmy said, to all of them, and then more to Jack (and a reminder to everyone else), "Waste as seen as thievery, and punished as such."

Jack still didn't know how thieves were punished and he still didn't want to know. He ate his cabbage. It wasn't particularly nice, but he was hungry enough to prefer it to nothing.


	5. Chapter 5

Lessons went on for three more hours after mealtime was over. It was no more pleasant in the afternoon than the morning; less in some ways. Most notably, Jack was not in the habit of sitting still to do bookwork for hours on end. He was used to running around outside, playing or running errands but moving, always moving. Now he could look out the window and see open sky, gray and gloomy though the weather was, but he was meant to stay in his seat, bent over his lesson.

"Sit up straight!" barked the teacher, in the middle of explaining history or grammar. The lessons somewhat ran together for Jack in the end, until he was no longer certain of the subject. This led to a rather unfortunate moment when he was called to answer a question.

"Mr. Sharp!" and then, "Stand up straight when I call on you, boy!" That was unfair, as for once Jack had answered promptly to his name and was startled enough out of the tedium of the afternoon that he was standing quite as straight as any child could be expected to stand. Then, "Answer the question."

Jack would gladly have answered the question…if he had any idea what the question was. There was a certain eager gleam in the teacher's eye as well; one that said he knew he had caught out an inattentive student and he intended to enjoy the student's discomfort and embarrassment as far as he could take it. There was a long moment of silence while the other children alternatively looked on Jack with pity or amusement. Had Jack at least known the subject of the question he could have said _something_. It would surely be wrong, but at least it would be wrong in the right way; a date for history, a number for maths, a grammar rule for grammar. Jack had not the slightest idea where to begin with a guess.

"Well?!" bellowed the teacher with such force, that Jack automatically stammered out an answer. It was not the answer the teacher was looking for.

"_Lo siento_," is what he said.

"What?!" answered the teacher, his eyes wide in astonishment before his features twisted in anger and he marched right over to Jack to loom over him. "What did you call me? A low sea toad?!"

"nnn," Jack answered, not quite managing to say 'no', let alone to explain what he had actually said.

The teacher swung his arm harshly and Jack flinched away, but the man's hand did not make contact with him. Instead, the hand was now pointing, jabbing, towards the door.

"I will not be spoken to in such a way by the likes of you! Out! Out into the hallway now! Stand up straight you crooked little gutter rat and you…you just wait!"

With some difficulty, Jack managed to make his feet move and carry him away from the shouting, towering figure. His hands shook when he opened the door. Then he was in the silent empty hallway and the door was closed behind him and for a long moment he simply stood there, holding himself.

From the other side of the door, he could hear the teacher's voice shouting, "Sit up straight the lot of you! And you can stop your snickers, Lewis and Greene, don't think I don't see you there, and Johnson, you answer the question, stand up straight boy!"

After a few minutes passed and nothing horrible had happened and the classroom at his back had gone silent again, Jack stopped hugging himself and moved a few steps away from the door. The floor creaked beneath his feet and he paused, waiting to see if anyone was going to appear and scold him. No one did.

Jack didn't know how to feel. He knew he was in disgrace and that he should feel scared and alone and ashamed. What he mostly felt was relieved. He was relieved that he was finally allowed to stand and that he did not have to sit and do lessons any longer. He was relieved the teacher was away in the classroom and he was outside. He could breathe. He could twist about and move his feet and legs and torso. He knew this was a punishment, but it did not _feel_ like a punishment, and that in itself made him feel a bit guilty.

The only real drawback of being in the hall was not knowing what was to come next. He did not know if this was only the first part of a much worse punishment; maybe a whipping or a thousand lines or not being allowed supper or…well Jack had an unfortunately active imagination and he could think up far worse, if less likely, punishments that might come.

Still, Jack had spent all the morning, and then all the afternoon in a classroom, with only a short break in the middle. It was good to get away. Moreover, there was a window at the end of the hallway.

Jack did not know what he was meant to do outside of the classroom. No one had told him. Some children would be petrified into staying absolutely still. Jack was not the sort of child to become petrified, difficulties with speech aside. He went rather in the opposite direction; he had been told to go out and not been told to stay put in any particular place, so he did not stay put. He went to the window. He had to go quietly and carefully because the floor would creak with every step, and he suspected if anyone stuck their heads out from any of the rooms he passed that they would not be pleased to see a boy wandering the hall. It became a sort of game, in fact, a tiptoe game. By the time Jack reached the window, he was so distracted by his game that, far from trembling or being on the verge of tears, he was covering his mouth to hold back giggles.

From the window he could see the cows grazing in a field and he could see the trampled bit of earth that was the rose garden and he could see the fences around the Cottage and the dirt road leading to the gate that led away, back to the train station, back to London.

Jack looked out and had a strange mixture of feelings in his chest, feelings that were so large they felt too big for his small body to hold in. He had practice holding the large dark sadness from after his mother's death but this was a new feeling that he did not have a name for in the least. It was a feeling that said 'home is over there' and he was happy to look towards it and sad to be away from it and happy to be able to look out on the world and not happy that he was apart from the outside world and still inside the Cottage.

It did not occur to Jack to try and leave, to go back to London on his own. The very idea of not doing what the grownups in his life expected of him, to strike out on his own, was so alien a concept it did not fit inside his head. The seeds of such an idea, however, were planted in that moment. Jack did not have the words for what he was feeling but he would learn them. Homesickness. Discontent. Anger. And something English has no proper word for, that feeling that _the world is unfair and it shouldn't be_. And some children, when faced with such large feelings, react by lashing out and screaming and ranting. And some children withdraw. Jack could be said to do neither. Or possibly both at once.

Jack did not shout and he did not scowl and dream up all the nasty things he wanted to happen to everyone who wronged him. He did not cry and think on how alone he was. He did not feel wronged so much as feel that the world around him was _wrong_. He looked out the window and he remembered his mama and he remembered the Bianchi family. And he remembered Signora Bianchi telling him to remember his roots. And he smiled and, very quietly so only his own ears would hear, he sang a little tune his mama used to sing to him. Then he sang another tune, this one a favorite of Sofia's. He sang in Spanish and in Italian and in English and he watched a bird flying and he watched the cows quietly grazing and the world felt a wonderful place to be and like he was not the least bit alone.

Then, just as he was starting a new song, there was noise in the hallway and he most certainly was not alone because children, boys and girls, were pouring out of the classrooms to stand in their lines.

Jack was actually startled by this. He had almost forgotten he really was in a building full of children and that he was in disgrace and had an unknown fate looming over him. He remembered it at once when he saw his classmates coming out. It was not pleasant. He could feel it physically like he had swallowed a stone and it had fallen heavily into his stomach.

The teacher did not come marching out of the classroom looking for him. Instead, he saw Jimmy waving at him, silently calling Jack to the line the sixers were forming of their own accord. Jack went, filing into place behind the taller boy.

"Hey, that's my space," the boy behind Jack hissed, and then Roger slid around in front of Jack. This led to a brief chain reaction when the next boy didn't want to lose his place either, and ended with Jack, without moving a step, finding himself four more places back. Then it was Octavius behind him, and he did not seem to mind Jack in front.

"Stand up straight!" barked a severe voice, and Jack jumped, then endeavored to stand straighter than he ever had in his life. He expected at any moment to be called out of the line for the rest of his punishment. Nothing happened.

"Off you go then, quick march!" barked their teacher, and the line started to move, down the hall and down the stairs and finally out the door to the trampled bit of dirt that was the rose garden. The teacher did not follow.

Jack was rather surprised to realize a second line was walking alongside theirs, made up of children roughly the same size but wearing dresses. He had become so used to always being separate from the girls that they might as well have been in a separate building. The two lines were rather long as it was more than just the sixers; Jack would later learn everyone age five to eight went together every day after lessons for exercise.

The teenager Henderson was waiting for them in the rose garden, alongside a young woman. They both looked a bit bored. Henderson sat himself down on the short fence that surrounded the large bit of dirt while the girl sat herself on the ground. She pulled a book out of her pocket.

"Go on then, you know what to do," Henderson called out to them. Jack had no idea what to do but very quickly learned. It was not a difficult task to understand; what they were to do was walk in their lines around the garden. There was nothing more to the activity than that; they did not push and shove or run or jog or skip or whisper or particularly look about. They walked and they looked at the person in front of them and that was it. Jack was rather confused why Roger and the other boys were so concerned with being at the front of the line. In fact, there were so many children that they more or less encircled the entire garden so the lines had no proper beginning or end.

The two lines walked together, so Jack spent his time with a new companion walking at his side, but she stared straight ahead and it was clear they were not expected to talk. Even more surprising, no one pushed or shoved or dragged their feet either.

The activity went on for almost a full hour. Jack did not much mind walking, even walking for so long without rest, but walking to no purpose and without any variation was even worse than sitting at a desk for hours, where at least the lessons changed. Jack did not want to walk; he wanted to run. He wanted to dance and skip and play.

After that hour, a bell rang from somewhere. The girl put down her book. The boy stopped playing with a bit of string, which is how he had passed the time. The walking children stopped walking. There was a long moment of stillness when no one spoke and no one moved. Then a voice called from the direction of the building, "Fivers to me!" and part of their long snakey line about the garden broke away. Next a voice called "eights!" and the tallest of their group left, boys in one row and girls in another. By the time Donald's voice called out "Sixers to me!" Jack understood well enough to move with his line.

Donald led them, girls and boys alike, to a water pump where they were to wash their hands and faces. Most of the children also took the opportunity to have a drink.

"Survived your lessons, Jack?" Donald asked in a friendly manner as he offered Jack a small hand towel afterwards. Jack managed a small smile in answer and Donald did not seem to expect more. Everyone lined up again and Jack was starting to feel dizzy from being sent this way and that and never knowing where he was going next.

Jack did not have to wonder long because they were brought directly to the dining hall. They joined the five and eight year olds at their table, squished in as tight as they were able, and Jack could feel everyone relaxing from the rigid silence maintained before.

"What was that?" Jack whispered to Octavius, who of course was still at his side. "The walking in circles?"

"That was exercise," answered Octavius. "We always walk in the rose garden."

"That was a rose garden?" Jack asked next.

"That's what we call it," Octavius answered, a bit doubtful himself about this. Some of the other boys around them then proffered their opinions on what happened to the roses. Most agreed there were roses at some point and that the witch had something to do with their being gone, but the stories varied greatly. The tamest, by far, was "I think they just got neglected and died because she don't care for pretty flowers."

After learning rather more than Jack had wanted to about the evils of the witch and the supposed fate of the roses, Jack turned to Octavius again and brought the conversation around to a point that had particularly been worrying him.

"What happens…after you are sent out of the classroom? Is there more punishment?"

"If Master Berring forgets about you…nothing happens at all," answered Octavius. "He usually forgets. If he remembers, he might tell _her_. And she orders a whipping. Or if she is really angry she locks you in the basement. That is the worst. I heard…I heard a boy was locked in for a whole night and he was eaten by rats."

For some reason, hearing that did not set Jack at ease. This set off another round of whispered stories, this time about the horrors of the basement. None of the boys directly around Jack had ever been in there, but they all knew the stories.

"It's as dark as night, even in the middle of the day," and "She keeps rats as pets and if she's really angry she'll tell them to bite you," and "There's something worse than a rat that lives down there, you can hear it breathing" and "I heard there are snakes," and "I heard she comes down in the middle of the night and cuts off your toes for a potion," and "It's cold as a grave and dark as a tomb," and "She whips them first, herself, a proper whipping," and "I heard the witch…." "Shush! Don't you call her that or we'll all be locked down there!"

They had time to whisper. It took around half an hour for all the different age groups to slowly join them, filling the cafeteria with a growing noise, until finally it was time to stand for prayer and the food was served.

This time, the witch did not join them at the dais. The food was chicken and cabbage again. Jack ate his share, though it was hard. In the first place, he was becoming quite sick of chicken and cabbage. In the second, he still could feel that hard rock in his stomach and it seemed to fill him up and made him not want to eat. He did not dare leave any food though, and he thought he should be hungry, so he ate. All the while, as everyone finished their meal and then obediently followed their lines to put away their dishes and then went on to evening chores, Jack waited for the teacher or the witch to spring out and demand he face his punishment.

It seemed Master Berring had forgotten about Jack, though, or did not care enough to punish him further. The rest of the evening followed the same pattern as the day before, except the boys were less tense in the garden because the witch had never shown and so the rule of silence was less rigidly upheld during the meal. Octavius managed to not get dirt in his hair this time and so was not quite so damp after. They had chapel time. Then they returned to their dormitory.

Jack managed to not burst into tears. The other boys were a little less interested in him, having known him now for a full day. Jack mostly whispered to Octavius, asking questions about how everything worked. A few of the other boys joined them. It seemed sharing horror stories about the Cottage and the witch was a favored pastime.

"Yes, we do get cabbage a lot. We only get the chicken once or twice a week, though. Mostly we stuff ourselves on bread."

"I don't know any of the girls. We never talk. I don't think we're allowed to."

"I talk to Trudy sometimes," this said with great importance and daring, "She says their lessons are mostly needlework. They have book lessons in the morning and sewing all afternoon. I thought it sounded better than us, doing books all day, but she says her fingers get so tired and achy and that doesn't sound nice at all."

"Henderson isn't too bad. Richards is the worst. If he says he's going to whip you, he'll really do it. I think he likes bossing us around."

"Donald is the best. He'll help you if you need it."

In the end, as he curled up in his bed with Octavius, he fell asleep with a thoughtful sort of frown on his face. In his heart were new thoughts and new ideas. They went something along the lines of 'things are not right here'. And that thought was followed by 'things could be better'. And that was followed by 'Things need to change'.

Jack was not a rebel. He was not a rebellious sort of child. It is not the rebels who really change the world. It is the quiet thinkers, the ones who look around with open eyes and whisper that most insidious of questions, "Why?" or even worse, "Why not?"

Jack was not a rebel but he also most definitely was not a lamb.


	6. Chapter 6

The difficulty with the seeds of ideas is that they are all potential without much to show for where that potential might lead. A seed that will grow up into a disaster looks much the same, at its birth, as a seed that will grow into greatness.

Jack did not contemplate this when the idea first came to him. He did not wonder whether this idea might grow into something good or bad. Children are rarely so introspective. Even so, he could feel something looming; a suggestion of danger. Of course the idea was dangerous. Jack knew the witch would not like it. Jack feared the witch. But he feared not changing things even more. He feared staying year after year under the name Jack Sharp. Mostly, he feared forgetting who he really was.

Jack did not think those thoughts either, but he felt them strongly.

Jack was a naturally well behaved child, but that fear of losing himself made him cling to everything about himself that was him. Which was why, after about a week in his new home, Jack got into his first real trouble.

Jack's first week was a learning experience. He suffered through the routine of his new life for three more days, managing to not be sent out in the hall those days, and then through a Sunday which was even worse than the rest of the week because not only did they all have to sit in the chapel for extra hours, the Witch, contrary to all expectations, joined them and put everyone on edge. Then instead of lessons they all went to their classrooms and the older children led the younger in reading bible verses, and they all had to memorize a bit to recite after dinner.

"If you get it wrong, you have to write it a thousand times, and then you have to recite it again, and if it is still wrong you have to spend the night all alone in the chapel and you have to stay there without food or a blanket or anything until you learn your verses."

That was Roger, in a whisper, in the manner of sharing a ghost story, and sounding far too gleeful considering the tale was all too true and real, almost as though he hoped someone would suffer that exact fate.

"What if…what if my words don't come?" Jack had whispered, to Jimmy and Octavius rather than to Roger.

"Make them," said Jimmy.

"I'll step on your foot again," said Octavius.

Luckily, the person Jack had to recite his lines to was Donald, or Jack might well have frozen up and not been able to recite. Donald was familiar enough by then, and friendly enough, that Jack recited them out straight off. In fact, none of his new friends had to write lines, let alone spend a night in the chapel.

Then it was Monday. Jack had been at the Cottage for not quite a week. He knew all his dorm mates by name, and called them friends. Jack knew his way around his new home. He knew the schedule. He knew he was very sick of cabbage. He knew that his limbs ached to really move. He knew that his name was not Mr. Sharp and he was not six years old. He knew he was not Italian. He knew his mother did not speak gibberish.

He knew that there was an entire world outside of the window, outside of the Cottage. London was somewhere out there. The sky filled the window, and the sky was so much larger than everything, and that spoke to Jack somehow. It was like a constant, whispering reminder that Jack might be small…but so was everyone else. The sky was always bigger. The world was always wider. Somehow, just looking up at the huge everything that was the sky made something inside of Jack bigger too. It was like opening a window in his mind and letting possibilities fly in with the wind and plant themselves, waiting to grow into something new.

He woke up on Monday, earlier than anyone else, and he went to the window. There was nowhere else to go; they were locked in at night and there was no light in the room except the soft glow of the predawn. Jack went to the window, and looked out at the free sky and remembered when his life was different. When it was better.

And then he thought, "Why?"

It was a dangerous question to ask, and he wasn't even sure what he meant by it. Why was life the way it was? Why did he like his old life better? Why did he not like the Cottage? Why…perhaps even…why could they not change things and make them good?

And questions like that are dangerous seeds that lead to new and dangerous ideas, the sorts of ideas that could end in disaster…or in something glorious.

Jack looked out on an awakening world, and something inside himself awoke as well. He smiled, because watching the sky awaken was beautiful in a quiet way, like the opposite of loneliness because he was alone but he was sharing the rising sun with the world.

And when Henderson unlocked their door and marched in and started overturning mattresses, shouting, "Rise, all rise!" Jack kept smiling. Well, he did frown for a moment when he saw some of his new friends fall on the floor and was afraid they were hurt, but when no one really was he smiled again.

And when he got to go out into the garden in the early morning he smiled at all the growing plants.

"What is wrong with you?" Roger asked him. Roger was not at all fond of leaving his somewhat comfortable bed to go outside into the early morning air for chores. Smiles first thing in the morning were rare, at least without something amusing happening.

"Nothing is wrong with me," Jack answered, now slightly frowning out of confusion at the question. When Roger only harrumphed at him, Jack returned the question. "Is something the matter with you?"

"It's too early and I'm hungry and we're doing chores," Roger answered. "And you keep smiling."

"Well…it's a nice morning, isn't it?" said Jack. "And I like being out with the plants. We should plant more, new plants. We should sing to them. I think they would like that."

"He's gone batty," Roger said, to the others not to Jack. Jack didn't mind. He was used to Roger by then and did not much mind what he thought. Jack returned to smiling and Roger returned to grumbling. And that might have been just a tiny exchange of words during morning chores that would be quickly forgotten about, except that Jack decided to act on his own thoughts.

He did not have any seeds to plant new plants, of course, but he pushed little bits of leaves and twig into the soil and he told them, "And you can grow into a jellybean tree, and you can be apples, and you can be cheese…"

"Cheese does not grow in the ground," said Jimmy, his tone confused by Jack's antics more than anything.

"They do in my garden," answered Jack, and then half singing he chanted "Apples and cheese grow on trees, and jelly beans, and lots of greens…"

"Ew, no let's not have those!" Octavius protested.

"And reds and oranges and yellows too," Jack went on, "A rainbow of candy for my stew..."

The song, if it could be called a song with the way the tune meandered as aimlessly as the words, was oddly captivating. At any rate, the other children stopped interrupting him or asking him what he was doing and started to giggle or to shout out their own ideas, and were immensely pleased when shouts of 'and popcorn!' and 'liquorish' and 'cocoa' found their way into his tune: 'We'll have a popcorn bush…and a pond of mush (ew, was the response to that one), and how I wish for liquorish grown up tall for a dish and so, you must know, let's make the pond out of cocoa (better than mush, was the response).'

"What are you doing?!"

That was the response of Henderson. Most of the boys, who were somewhat wary of Henderson, who was not the worst of their overseers but far from the best, immediately turned all their attention back to the garden, trying to act as though they had never thought Jack's song amusing and they had been bent over their work the entire time. Jack also stopped singing, but he didn't stop smiling and he answered the question just as though it had been voiced in a benevolent and interested tone rather than an enraged snarl.

"Singing to the garden."

"This is morning chores, not choir practice," Henderson answered, and both Jimmy and Octavius stepped on Jack's shoes to try and silently get him to stop talking for once. They failed. Jack was in a strange sort of happy mood that made him almost defiantly cheerful.

"Gardens grow better with a bit of song," Jack insisted in an authoritative manner.

"And I say they don't, so stop the songbird lark before I give you a reason to sing."

"As you like," said Jack with a bit of a shrug, and he turned back to his work, which he had kept up even while singing before. Henderson was somewhat suspicious that the words weren't really an agreement, but decided that his warning had been understood, and he turned away. He got about five steps. Then Jack started whistling. He also started dancing a bit, but that was less to do with his song and more to do with evading Jimmy and Octavius's attempts to get him to stop before he got in trouble.

"I warned you!" Henderson shouted, marching back and grabbing Jack by the arm. "I'll give you a whipping you won't forget!"

Jack would rather have liked to say something at that point, perhaps 'sorry, please don't, I'll be good' or perhaps 'You never said I couldn't whistle, you said don't sing, and I wasn't' or perhaps 'Beat me as hard as you like, I'll whistle all the same and you can't stop me!'. He probably would not have said the last or the first, though all those words were mixed up in his thoughts and he did want to at least plead his case that whistling was not singing. Of course he couldn't say any of that because his words deserted him again.

His friends were not so encumbered.

"Don't, he's sorry, please don't!" said Octavius. Henderson kept dragging Jack along roughly enough that Jack had trouble keeping his feet beneath him and was already wincing from the hold on his arm. Roger tried saying, "You didn't say we couldn't whistle" which was not received any better.

"Don't you whip Jack or…or I'll tell Donald!" Jimmy said. At that, Henderson did pause. Emboldened, Jimmy said, "I'll tell Donald you hit Jack just for being happy and…and we'll just see what Donald says about that!"

"Tell him whatever you like," Henderson answered, "And do keep up that noise; you'll be next, see if you aren't." This quieted the other boys to Henderson's satisfaction, but it was clear he _did_ care what Donald might be told, because he stopped eying the supply shed for an item to use as a whip or cane like he had intended. Not wanting to be seen to back down completely, he settled for using his own hand.

It was by no means pleasant for Jack; he hated not being able to protest and he hated the uncertainty of not knowing how hard his punishment was going to go until it was over and he hated having someone bigger and stronger than him making him bend over so he could be hit. He also hated that all the other boys could see and hear him being punished. But it was not the brutal beating that had been threatened either; Jack had certainly had worse. By the end of it, Jack's face was red and his eyes were teary, but mostly from strong emotions rather than the pain, and his backside stopped even feeling sore by the end of chores. It did rather dim his happy mood and his smile. For at least fifteen minutes.

It was an unpleasant ordeal, but after, when he was sent back to do more gardening, Octavius tried to gently wipe away his tears (to ill effect; they were gardening and his hands were not exactly clean, but it was kindly meant) and Roger, who generally was the expert in getting everyone else to do the difficult bits, helped Jack with a particularly dense clot of earth, and Jimmy mumbled, too quietly for Henderson to hear, "And I _will_ tell Donald", so Jack felt better almost at once simply because he had his friends at his side. By the time chores were over, the soothing act of gardening had calmed away all the confusing upset feelings that being punished had ignited.

Washing up was not pleasant either; Henderson was still cross with Jack and it showed through an unnecessarily thorough dunking. In fairness to Henderson, Jack's face was streaked with dirt, but there was no need to remedy that by having Jack's whole head in the bucket, and his hands were clean long before Henderson admitted them to be and allowed Jack to stop scrubbing. This time it was Octavius trying to share his damp towel with Jack and Jack who shivered all through breakfast. He found he rather appreciated how closely they were crammed; his friends at least were warm.

During lessons, Jack looked out at the open sky, and he smiled.

This day, he did not even last until their break for mealtime before he was sent out into the hall. Jack was more used to their teacher and his strict moods and he did not waste any time with feeling nervous about his punishment. The moment he was free of the classroom, he immediately started his careful creeping steps towards the window, wary of the creaking floorboards. His spirits were completely lifted by the time he reached it.

They were dampened as time moved on and no one called Jack back for the afternoon meal, but it was still worth it to stare out at the cows and to wriggle his body however he liked and to softly sing up to the sky instead of sitting still and straight for hour after hour in the classroom. Of course sitting for hours at a window was not a huge improvement. It occurred to Jack to wonder if he could not leave the hall entirely. He could go down and greet the cows in the field or see how his twigs had grown or learn what was in all the closed rooms in the great big building that was his new home.

For at least half an hour he resisted the urge, knowing the very real trouble he could get into and that it was not allowed. But he was only seven, and no one had actually told him he was not allowed to wander, and the strange mood that had awoken in him that morning was now being fed by the open sky that afternoon. He played his creeping game again, this time to get to the stairs without being caught.

He did have enough sense to not go visit the cows. In the first place, he knew that if he could see them out the window, someone else could see them out the window and they could also see Jack. In the second, when he went as far as the fence, he discovered that close up cows are quite a bit bigger than far away window cows, and perhaps they weren't feeling friendly.

His garden was not much growing, but he sang it a few new words just to be certain of things. Some of the words sounded quite good, and he sang them a few times, and maybe they could be a proper song and not just a nonsense play song.

Then he went to the rose garden. He looked at all the not-there roses, and sang for them too.

He knew he should go back to the hall. He should be there to get into the line and not get into trouble. He knew he should. But there was something about his strange mood that did not let him go sneaking back, that kept him in the rose garden, right up to the time when all the children came down in their straight lines to find him there.

Jack probably did not deserve to be as lucky as he was, considering he was misbehaving and he _knew_ he was misbehaving, but by great chance the first ones down the stairs that day were the sixers, and by the time their observers for the day had joined them (Donald that day, and a girl Jack didn't know the name of but had seen about), Jack was innocently marching in his line with the other boys. The girls had given him a look, but they didn't say anything and Jack could have gotten away with an entire afternoon of play.

Jack's feet, unfortunately, did not want to give up skipping and running and jumping for marching in lines around the rose garden. Jack managed to keep his wayward feet in check for two rounds, before he started skipping instead.

"Hey now, boy!" called the girl that Jack didn't know the name of, though to be fair she clearly did not know Jack's name either. "March proper or you won't get your supper." This was a rather dire threat, considering the earlier missed meal. Luckily, Donald came to his rescue.

"And why shouldn't they skip?" he asked. "A bit dull, this walking in circles."

"_She_ wouldn't like it," the girl answered doubtfully.

"_She_ isn't here. She left this morning to go see the mayor and ask him for more lovely supplies for all of us. Isn't she generous, always asking the mayor for help? So I say let them skip. I dare say they'll get tired of it soon and want to walk."

To that, his companion simply shrugged her shoulders, as if to say, 'do what you like, then'. So Jack skipped, and hopped, and many of the other children did the same. Some did not want to, and the lines got a bit muddled because some took the opportunity to walk more slowly while others took the opportunity to rush around and most followed Jack's example and so the fast ones had to dodge around the slow ones and Roger was rather in danger of being trampled when he thought to use the new freedom to sit down instead.

"No sitting!" Donald called, "It's still exercise!"

As Donald predicted, most of the children tired after a short while and just enjoyed a slight spring in their steps. Jack skipped the whole while and felt more alive than he had in a week.

"You are looking lively this afternoon," Donald commented to Jack as he had them all line up again properly to be led to their meal.

"I feel happy today," Jack answered.

"Henderson hit him earlier," Jimmy was prompt to add, "For whistling." Donald frowned.

"It didn't hurt much," Jack was quick to say, feeling a strange sort of guilt that they were going to get Henderson in trouble when Jack wasn't hurt, and then, "I don't see why we can't sing when we work in the garden. The plants like singing. And it's fun."

"He's been like that all day," Roger commented, "Like he's gone batty."

Jack wondered why feeling happy was the same thing as going batty.

The witch was still gone for their mealtime. And it was Donald who supervised evening chores, and he did not mind Jack singing to the plants and he let them use two towels if they needed a lot of washing after for drying off so they wouldn't be damp for chapel time.

When they were finally left to themselves for bedtime, Jack was extremely popular. All the boys wanted to know if his backside still hurt from being hit, and how he had gotten to the rose garden before them (how he dared), and did he know anymore silly songs? The answer to the first was no he didn't hurt at all, though his arm was a little sore where Henderson dragged him, and he was at the rose garden because his feet needed to move and as for songs…

"I don't know the garden song," Jack explained, "That's just a game, where you make words come out alike. Like I say, 'I like peas' and then I have to think a new word that sounds like peas. Maybe 'if you please'.

"I _don't_ like peas, if you please," Octavius answered, to the general merriment of everyone.

"You shouldn't act out, Jack," Jimmy said, his tone extremely serious and the laughter died away.

"I don't mean to," answered Jack. "Don't you ever get into trouble at all, Jimmy?"

"Only when I mean to," Jimmy answered. And he pulled a bit of chalk from his sock and, to all the boys' great delight, he pushed one of the chests away from a bed and drew an apple tree on the floor beneath it. "There," he said, "That's the tree in Jack's garden."

"Jack's garden had a jellybean tree, too," Octavius pointed out.

"I can't draw what isn't real," Jimmy answered, but the garden things he _did_ draw were quite good, particularly for a sixer, even if he _was_ really eight; they were good enough for a ten year old.

"I want to draw too," said Roger.

"Then you should have gotten your own chalk," answered Jimmy.

"Someone's coming," said one of the boys whose turn it was to listen at the door, so the chalk went back in Jimmy's sock and the chest was pushed over the drawing and everyone threw on their night clothes.

Jack curled up next to Octavius and he dreamed about a garden and it was quite nice until a rose told Jack that someone has been killing roses and was it him? The roses were very angry.

"I'm writing the mayor to tell him you are a naughty boy who can't stand up straight! And you have been killing roses!"

And there was a scary bit when the angry rose was going to wrap its thorns around him and tear him to bits but Jimmy (who was just _there_, in the way dreams sometimes go) said 'roses can't talk' and scribbled over the rose and it turned into a tree instead and they climbed and climbed into the morning.

It was a good day and a good night. But it was also the start of Jack's troubles. Because the seeds had been planted, and they only needed a bit of attention and time to grow.


	7. Chapter 7

Years later, many many years later, Jack would share what happened next as though it were a fairytale. He would smile and laugh a bit as he told the story. It's alright when horrible things happen to the hero of a story, because it is just a story and because the listeners all know that it will come out right in the end. The adults realize this because of course Jack is sitting there telling them the story. Children know this because that is how fairytales work.

When grownup Jack told the story to grownup Jane, she smiled and she laughed at all the bits where he meant her to smile and laugh. But she also got an unhappy look in her eyes, and it wasn't just because her illness was making her miserable. The look said 'I hear the parts of the story you aren't sharing.' The look made Jack feel just a bit uncomfortable himself, more uncomfortable than his own illness could manage. But because they were adults and feelings are complicated the look also made Jack feel better. Sharing often has that effect, even if the thing shared is an illness, or a look, or a story. The world can be horrible or miserable or unhappy, but Jack is not alone.

That was Jack's future.

In the now, Jack did not even yet know Jane Banks existed. He did not know he would one day look back upon his days in the Cottage as a story. He certainly did not imagine himself the hero of a story.

He dreamed about gardens and he woke up in a cold room, huddled on a hard bed next to his new friend. He rose in the early dawn with a smile and he dressed in the dim morning light. Octavius protested sleepily as the body that had helped to keep him warm in the night moved away, then got dressed himself.

They sat at the window together, looking out on the morning. They didn't speak. It felt right to be quiet and to leave their friends to their sleep.

It was just as well they had gotten up early, because it was Henderson again who came to wake them. They had a good half an hour of morning quiet before he stormed into their room, maliciously heaving along a bucket of cold water. The older boy didn't even offer the sleepers a chance to jump out of bed first, not shouting a single syllable to alert them it was time to wake, as he looked about the room, almost as though he were checking on each sleeper to count them. Or to find a particular boy.

Jack and Octavius stared at him in surprise from the window and a few other boys who had woken but not bothered to rise and dress sat up and blinked at the teen in confusion. Had they been a little quicker to understand, one of them would have shouted the call to get up themselves. The quiet morning made them all a bit slow, though, and it is rather hard to break the quiet when no one else has done so, and so Henderson had the time to stomp about the room, finally note Jack sitting at the window, and to scowl ferociously at him without anyone else stirring from their beds.

With an annoyed growl, Henderson finally shouted his usual, "Out of bed, all rise!" before immediately dumping his bucket over the nearest bed.

The single occupant of the bed was not among the early risers; if anything he was notorious for sleeping in until the very last moment.

Roger shrieked into wakefulness, almost falling out of the bed in his shock. Jack jumped up himself, one hand held towards them, as though he could somehow stop what had just happened.

"Up I said!" Henderson shouted, still grinning, and even the slowest of the boys stumbled to their feet, not wanting to find out if he had kept any water in reserve to use on them. Poor Roger was soaked through, though he dried himself quickly enough by changing out of his night clothes and using his friend's night clothes as a sort of towel.

The bedding was not so easily dried.

"I'm sorry," Jack told Roger later, in the garden. They were able to talk because Henderson shouted at them a lot to do their work, then disappeared around the side of the shed. This was not unusual. No one dared go and see what he did back there. They were just happy he was gone.

"I'll have to double up with someone else tonight," Roger complained. "What is with Henderson today? Usually it's Richards that dumps water on us or overturns the mattress."

"I think it's my fault," Jack explained. "He hates me."

"Don't be stupid. He dumped water on me, not you. Anyway he hates everyone. He's just usually lazy about it."

"Are you going to sing today, Jack?" Octavius wanted to know.

"Better not," said Jimmy pointed out. "Henderson might hit you again."

"He won't" Roger answered. "I'll bet he won't dare, not if we will go and tell Donald again after."

"It just doesn't feel like a morning for singing," Jack said. Jimmy nodded solemnly to this and Roger shrugged, but when most of the other boys looked disappointed Jack added, "But…I suppose it would make chores more cheerful…"

But then Henderson came back from behind the shed, and he scowled so fiercely at them that Jack couldn't think of a song to sing, even if he dared.

"Get to it!" Henderson shouted at them, "Those beans won't pick themselves!" As they had been at it all the time he was gone, that was somewhat unfair of him.

It was also unfair when he told Jack his hair was dirty at clean up time and had him duck it in the pail, even though they hadn't even been digging that day.

"Leave Jack alone or I'll tell Donald," Jimmy said. Henderson did let Jack go dry himself. He decided Jimmy had dirty hair too.

The other boys loaned them their towels after. Jack's hair was still damp all morning though. It was not pleasant.

Class felt longer than ever that day, especially to Jack after his freedom the day before, but this time his teacher did not send him away, not even when Jack could not manage to tell him what river was in India. This time is was for not knowing, not because his words would not come, but it was still rather unpleasant when Mr. Berring shouted at him and called him stupid, among more inventive adjectives.

Mealtime, for a change, was stale bread and fresh beans from the garden. The beans had looked very green and inviting when they had picked them. They did not look so now; they had been boiled until they were limp and bland. There was no chicken this time. Jack did not much mind. He found he was not very hungry.

"Aren't you eating, Jack?" asked Jimmy, who always noticed when one of the boys was in danger of breaking a rule.

"He doesn't like beans," Roger said, with all the authority of a person who absolutely hated green beans and could not imagine anyone being of a different opinion on the matter.

"He does so like them; he snacked on some in the garden," Octavius pointed out, in probably a louder voice than he should have used when there were teachers nearby, but then, it is hard for small children to always be so guarded. Luckily, their teacher was in the habit of paying them no mind whatsoever during meals and did not notice.

"Don't say that so loud," Jimmy scolded, then, "Do you feel well, Jack?"

"I'm not hungry," Jack answered at last. And then he sneezed. Twice.

"Bless you," said Roger.

"I knew he liked beans," said Octavius.

"You look pale," said Jimmy, frowning. "And your hair is still damp. You didn't dry it hard enough. Mine dried an age ago."

The bell rang. Quickly, without needing to talk or plan for it, all the boys closest to Jack reached over and grabbed the last bit of food from his plate, swiftly cramming it into their mouths. Jack had eaten a little over half, so it only took three of them to finish it off. Jack blinked in surprise, then sneezed again.

"Everyone finished their plates?" their teacher asked in his booming voice. "No little thieves putting our good food to waste?"

"No, sir," Jimmy answered for all of them, and he gestured towards their empty plates as proof. Mr. Berring barely bothered to even glance at the empty dishes before saying, "Well then, stand up straight, you look a bunch of wilting weeds, dishes in the hall and back to your seats; it's time for maths."

There was a collective groan, if only because it was expected, to which Mr. Berring did not even bother to reprimand them, and the empty dishes were placed on the cart they had arrived on and pushed into the hall for one of the teenagers to collect.

Jack went to his seat with the rest of the boys. He did not do well in maths that day. Normally, he would turn the numbers into a sort of puzzle game, but just that day his brain did not seem able to turn the numbers into a game. His head was starting to hurt, in fact, and his eyes felt droopy, and his head felt fluffy, and it is very hard to do sums when one's head was both hurty and fluffy and one's eyes are droopy.

"Mr. Sharp!" barked Mr. Berring, "What is the answer to problem five?"

As Jack had not gone past problem two, and his answer to that was questionable, this was not an easily answered question. Octavius tried to helpfully slide his slate in Jack's direction to let him read off his answer. This was not, in the boys' minds, considered cheating; it was a necessary survival tactic for their environment. Jack, who had spent most of his life with his mother, and then with a very stern matriarch, unfortunately still clung to a stricter moral code and did not read the offered answer.

"Well, Sharp? Stand up straight when I talk to you!" That last was actually a slightly more reasonable demand than usual; Jack had begun to lean against his desk.

"Seven, sir?" Jack tried, knowing at least what subject they were in this time and that a number was being asked for, even if he had very slim odds in choosing the correct one. In fact, the answer was not seven.

"Seven?! Seven?!" demanded Mr. Berring. "What stupid nonsense! Are you even trying, boy?! Respect! Hard work shows respect to your betters. Sloppy, lazy work shows disrespect. Are you being disrespectful, Sharp?!"

Jack did not know the right answer to that either, and at any rate being shouted at and knowing himself to be in disgrace was a sure way to still his tongue and make any answer impossible. Not answering, however, turned out to definitely be the wrong answer. His teacher towered over him, his face angry and scowling, and Jack shrank away.

"Stand up straight!" roared Mr. Berring.

"Excuse me, sir," said a voice. That voice was not Jack's. All the boys turned to gawp at the boy who dared to intervene and speak in that moment. Mr. Berring himself looked so astonished at the interruption that for a moment he forgot to be angry. He remembered quite quickly.

"Mr. Johnson," he said, now towering over Jimmy. Jimmy looked solemnly back at him, neither defiant nor cowering.

"Excuse me, sir," he said again, "But I think Mr. Sharp needs to see the nurse. He's ill."

"Nonsense!" Mr. Berring answered. "He's a lazy, disrespectful, stupid little boy and he needs to stand up straight and do his work! I'm up to all you boys' tricks, trying to look pale and shivery and droopy. All you need is discipline. Stand up straight, the lot of you! I'll hold you all over, see if I don't, until you all know your place! Mr. Sharp! You have earned yourself extra sums. And if they aren't done by the end of maths, you can come back after exercise to finish them!"

There was a long moment of silence after this.

"Well, Sharp, answer me!"

Jack hadn't known he was supposed to answer; it hadn't been a question after all. He opened his mouth, but he had no idea what kind of answer the teacher wanted, and so any answer was impossible.

"Well?! Do you need more sums? Perhaps some lines, to teach you!"

"He's ill, sir!" Jimmy answered, shockingly out of turn, and all the boys, including Jack, stared at him for his daring. Mr. Berring's face started to turn red, and he turned on Jimmy as well.

"You can certainly join him in extra work, Johnson. Stand up straight!"

"Sir!" Jack blurted out, concern for his friend overcoming his stricken tongue, and then, when the teacher turned to look at him, "I'm sorry, sir."

That at last seemed to be the sort of answer their teacher wanted, because he stopped radiating fury and almost smiled.

"And what are you sorry for, Sharp?" he asked.

"For…for…"

"For being a stupid, lazy boy who is a failure at maths?"

Jack stared at him in silence.

"Go on, then, say it. Tell me what you're sorry for."

For the first time, Jack was silent, not because he could not speak, but because he did not want to.

"Go on, Sharp," growled Mr. Berring, "Or do I need to show you all what happens to stupid little boys who cannot answer their betters?"

Jack looked towards Jimmy. Jimmy was frowning. Octavius stepped on Jack's foot. Jack was not alone.

"I am sorry, sir, for being a stupid, lazy boy who is a failure at maths," he said. For once, the words did not get lost somewhere on the way out. He did not know how he felt in that moment. It was similar to how he felt when Henderson took him to be hit, only worse. Jack never thought that not being hit could be worse than being hit.

"Well then," Mr. Berring said, not exactly smiling, but no longer looming. "And at least you're not a sniveling crybaby like some boys. Well, stand up straight, and back to work. Sit down, Sharp. Lewis, what is the answer to number five?"

"Six, sir," answered one of the boys behind Jack. Jack practically fell back into his seat, suddenly feeling drained, as though the very life had been sucked out of him.

He did not finish his extra sums before the lesson was over. He did not even finish the first set.


	8. Chapter 8

Exercise was dismal. Doing sums instead of joining the others in the cafeteria was likely less of a punishment than it was intended to be, as Jack was not at all hungry.

Only when he went obediently to do them, along with Jimmy, who was meant to be doing lines, they found the classroom locked and deserted.

"He often does that," Jimmy said, not too concerned. "He likes to give out punishments like extra lines and extra lessons, but he does not like to have to come and watch us do them after hours. Come on, Jack."

Jack could hear Jimmy's stomach growl, and felt guilty, and hoped they would be allowed in to eat, if only so Jimmy would not have to miss because of Jack. Only Jimmy did not drag Jack to the cafeteria, he dragged him to the same place Donald had once taken him that first day, which felt eons ago though it was not even two weeks.

"And what is this, then?" asked the nurse. Jack did not answer, feeling muddled and tired and like he was yet again being dragged around by forces unseen, just when he was beginning to get a feel for things.

"Jack's ill, I think," Jimmy answered for him. "He sneezes and is all white and he had his hair damp all morning and damp makes illness."

"Let me take a look at you then," said the nurse, and she did just that.

The end pronouncement was that Jack had a bit of a cold.

"Nothing serious," she decided. "Yet. But you should stay quiet and resting someplace warm. Do you want to stay here, Jack? Madame is deathly afraid of illness running rampant through the Cottage and killing off her precious children; if I say you need rest and quiet, you will get it."

"Do I have to stay here?" Jack asked. He actually did feel a bit better. Somehow, having a grown person looking kindly on him was healing in itself.

"If you get any worse, you will certainly need to stay here," she answered. "But you don't quite have a fever and you say don't feel you are going to be sick, and you aren't falling over. You have a bit of a cold. You can stay here where it is quiet and warm and rest up, or you can sleep the night in your dorm and we will see how you feel in the morning."

"I want to stay with my friends," Jack said.

"Are you sure he isn't really sick?" Jimmy asked. Jack sneezed.

"We will see how he is in the morning," the nurse repeated. "Now, let's see about some nourishing food." And she had the two boys sit at a small table and went away for a few minutes to call for their meals. Jack was not completely happy with this turn; he was glad Jimmy was getting to eat but he did not really want to do it himself, and he just knew if the nurse saw him turning away food she would decide he was too sick after all, and make his stay. Jack did not want to stay all by himself in an empty bed, far away from his friends.

The food that came was not beans and stale bread, though; there was nourishing broth with bits of chicken in it, and it smelled so lovely, and was more a drink than a food anyway, and Jack found he was able to eat it after all, and it warmed him inside and he actually felt a bit better after. Jimmy got nourishing broth too, two bowlfuls as he was not particularly ill and was quite hungry. The broth had come in a big pot so they were both allowed as much as they wanted.

They stayed with the nurse all through meal, and through chores and chapel time. It was a nice reprieve, though honestly two small boys left to sit through all those hours would likely have gotten bored, except one was napping and the other was allowed a bit of paper and a pencil for drawing. Jack woke up again after a bit, and admired the drawing, and then they were allowed to whisper together.

"We really won't be in trouble for being here?" Jack wanted to know.

"She is scared of illness," Jimmy answered. "We get in trouble for not going to the nurse if someone is ill. If we all die, she will get in trouble. And the mayor will stop giving her things."

"Why does the mayor give her things?" Jack wanted to know next. He had heard it before, about the mayor visiting the Cottage and inspecting it and how the witch wrote to him and said they needed more food or new clothes, and then kept the money he sent for herself. But he didn't really know why the mayor sent money. He was not entirely sure what a mayor did, except to be important.

"She writes him letters," said Jimmy, though he was not entirely sure himself what the mayor was to the school. "I think she says things like 'help, please, I need money for new shoes.'"

"And he sends the money? He must be a very good man, to want us to have shoes," Jack said.

"I suppose," answered Jimmy, "Only, the wicked witch steals the money and we never get the shoes." He reached down and patted his own shoes to make his point; they were worn out to almost be unwearable, with thin soles holes at the toes. Jack looked down at his own shoes, which were not particularly nice, but still had some wear left in them.

"Why doesn't someone tell the mayor?" Jack asked. "If he is a good man, he would want to know. And he would make sure we have good shoes."

"Who could tell him?" asked Jimmy. "We are all stuck in here and he is in the town. And whenever he visits, we aren't allowed to speak to him. And even if we did, we are children. She would say we lied. No one ever believes a child over a grown person. Not ever."

He said this with such a practical tone that it almost completely snuffed out the kernel of an idea that had blossomed in Jack's chest. Almost

Then the nurse had come back and said, "And how are we getting on? Still feel well enough to go to your dorm?"

"Yes," Jack answered, and the two of them were sent on their way, with a stern reminder that Jack was to see her in the morning.

"First thing! I don't want you going out into the cold for chores."

With that happy promise made, the two returned to their dorm. The other boys were already there, getting into their night clothes and arguing over the bed arangements.

"Oh no!" said Roger, when he saw them. "I thought you weren't coming back tonight. Now I won't get the alone bed."

"Hooray, you're back!" Octavius greeted them in a more friendly manner. "I was afraid Master Berring would make you stay all night in that dark cold classroom." The general reaction from the rest of the room rather sided with Octavius, with some obvious displeasure over Roger.

"I didn't want them to be gone," Roger defended himself, "I just thought they would be. Just look, this bed is still damp through; no one can sleep on it. And that makes one less bed."

"Should I go back to the nurse?" Jack asked, immediately feeling guilty.

"You were with the nurse?" Octavius asked. "I thought you were doing sums."

"Berring bolted," Jimmy answered. "And Jack is ill."

"Only a cold," Jack was quick to point out. "I feel almost all better. And…and…and I have an idea about the beds."

"Is it to make someone sleep on the floor?" asked Roger, "Because I thought of that, and no one liked it."

"No," answered Jack. "It's…well…it's this. What if we take all the beds, and we shove them together. And it makes one really big bed. And we can lie across it, and I think we will have more room. Maybe…maybe we can even double the mattresses."

"I don't think that will help," said Jimmy, frowning. Doing things out of the normal always made him feel unhappy. This felt like breaking the rules, too, which he only liked to do if he knew for sure he was doing it and that he was unlikely to be caught. Nonetheless, he tried to see what Jack meant, but couldn't. "We will be the same number, and the beds will be the same number, just moved."

"No, see, we won't," Jack answered. "Because, here, look at Roger and Simon and Tommy." The three boys, who were all sitting in a row on a bed together, looked surprised to be called out. "That bed just fits two, normally. But look, when they sit in a row, the bed fits three. It could even fit four. There, go sit there, Octavius."

Octavius did, and the bed held all four, quite well.

"Now, pretend you're sleeping that way. Isn't there plenty of room?"

"A bit short," Roger answered, who had responded to Jack's suggestion by theatrically falling backwards so his head hung over the end.

"But not if it were two beds pushed together," said Jack. "And we usually sleep two to a bed."

"Let's try it," the other boys decided. If nothing else, it was different, and daring, and sounded a bit fun. They still hesitated to move any beds, turning to look to Jimmy. Jimmy was not their leader, but he was the tallest boy, and they all knew he was secretly the oldest, so he had a bit of authority over them.

"Let's try it," he said, after only a moment of hesitation. They did. They were small boys, but the furniture in their room was not nice heavy wood with thick mattresses; it was small metal frames with thin mattresses, and together they quickly found a way of arranging them as they pleased. The hardest part was to not scrape against the ground so loudly that someone would come and stop them.

In the end, they had their massive bed, and found Jack's plan worked…more or less. They had to be a bit careful how they arranged themselves or someone was likely to fall through a gap, but they were able to all find a place, and with plenty of elbow room. At least, there was room for those like Roger who liked to sprawl. Many of the boys found cuddling close together comfortable, so long as it was a choice and not a necessity.

"How did you think of this?" one of the boys asked Jack, as they all settled into their new bed.

"I used to sleep in one big bed with…with other children," said Jack, who did not quite know how to refer to the Bianchi family. "It just seems right."

Jack went to sleep, happy to not be alone in the nurse's room, and feeling the day had not been quite as bad in the end as it had started.

The next day was not quite as bad either. It was much, much worse.

It started off well. Jack slept in later than usual, still feeling the effects of his cold, and so was startled awake by Donald coming into the room shouting, "All rise, all…what is this?"

"It's our new bed," Jimmy explained. Jimmy was good at explaining things. He always sounded so sensible it was hard to argue with him.

"I don't think Madame will like it," Donald said, after considering it for a moment, "But I don't think there is a rule. I'll tell the others to not bother you about it, but put it to rights every morning. If there is an inspection, you don't want it to be found like this."

Gladdened that their new creation wasn't being dismantled out of hand, they set about pulling the beds apart with the glad knowledge they could put it back together in the evening.

"Jack is to go to the nurse this morning," Jimmy announced as they got ready to head out.

"Are you ill, Jack?" Donald asked.

"I don't think so," said Jack, who still felt far sleepier than he usually did in the morning and like he would like to huddle under the covers, but he did not know if that counted as illness.

"Your voice does sound hoarse," Donald commented. "Go on, then. Know the way?"

Jack thought he did, and nodded. It wasn't a lie; Jack just turned out to be incorrect.

In fact, he found walking by himself through the large Cottage rather strange. It felt almost like he were being naughty, even though the nurse had told him to come, and he never pretended to be sick. He just knew that all of his friends were going outside to do chores, and it felt wrong not to help. Then he realized he had missed the door, somehow, and he was not at all sure where he was.

"You, boy!" said a voice, and he turned quickly to find two young girls in the hallway behind him, holding brooms. "You aren't allowed here. Boys aren't, you know."

This was said in an almost friendly tone, though, and Jack didn't think they meant to get him in trouble.

"I got lost," he answered easily, as he wouldn't have if they had been scolding, "I'm supposed to see the nurse."

"Are you ill?" asked the second girl. Then, "Come over here, and give me a kiss." This was rather more alarming than being scolded and Jack stared at her.

"Oh don't, Trudy," said the other girl. And then, to Jack, "She wants to be ill, too. When you're ill you don't have chores or lessons or chapel and you can have the nice food. But she doesn't know how horrid it can be, too."

Jack didn't know what to say to that, either, except, "Nurse said it was just a cold. But she wanted me to come back, to be sure."

"Do give me a kiss," the second girl urged. "Aren't I pretty?" And she put her hands on her cheeks and made kissy noises. Jack supposed she was pretty, even if her dress was rather ugly and her hair tied haphazardly into untidy knots. He did not know a lot about girls; Sophia hardly counted as she was a little thing, and Sophia's sisters all saw Jack as a sort of boy-doll to cuddle and baby or to scold or to be told to stay out of the way. If all girls were like this, then they were very alarming creatures and he was wise to stay away.

"Don't give her a kiss," the first girl said. "The nurse is down the stairs. Here, I'll show you."

"No, I will show you," the second insisted. And somehow, Jack found himself escorted with a girl holding each hand.

"What is your name, boy?" asked the second, who kept leaning into him, perhaps hoping he would try to kiss her after all.

"Jack," answered Jack. "What's yours?"

"What a common name," she answered, "Not even a last name. My name is Amelia Ermengarde Lawrence the third."

"No it isn't," said the second girl. "She's Trudy Baker. And I'm Jenny Miller. Here we are."

"Perhaps I should take him in," suggested Trudy. "I think I may have caught his cold after all. Cough, cough."

"If you learned to cough better, I might even let you," Jenny answered, "Come on, you are not leaving me to sweep the whole hall." And leaving Jack at the door, she dragged the other girl away. Trudy allowed this, blowing Jack a kiss as she went. Jack could hear her fake cough and then, 'how was I that time' as they went back up the stairs, and then nothing.

Jack walked quietly in to the room, passed the beds, and knocked at the door just as Donald had done that first day.

"Come in," said a voice on the other side, and then, when he opened the door, "Oh good, you did come. I was afraid I would have to send for you. You weren't made to go do chores after all, were you?"

Jack shook his head.

"Gone quiet again, I see," said the nurse with a frown. "Well, let's examine you."

Jack still did not think he was really ill, because ill meant being too weak to get out of bed, and it meant moaning and growing and being sick and crying. This was just him feeling sleepy, and his voice coming out funny and his stomach not wanting to eat.

The nurse disagreed.

"You are staying here today," she decided. "I'm adding you to my list of patients." And she did exactly that, and showed Jack his bed where he was to rest, and then sent for his breakfast.

Jack was not completely alone; it turned out a couple of the other beds also had ill children, only had hadn't seen them because there were curtains pulled around. He had breakfast with a teenage girl, two boys who looked almost as old to Jack but really were ten and eleven, and a little girl who was a tiny thing too little to have classes or chores. There was also another boy in a bed who was too ill to join them for breakfast. The nurse tutted over him while they had theirs; hot porridge with real raisins and a full glass of milk each.

Jack did not have much of a chance to make friends with the other children though, even if the boys hadn't looked down on him as a baby sixer and the teenager looked on all three as little boys; the nurse did not want them mixing in case they caught each other's illnesses and made each other worse. Jack heard the two boys whispering, too many beds over and with curtains drawn for Jack to know what they said. The teenager spent her rest time reading. The little girl was ill enough to actually sleep after she was put back in her bed. This left Jack alone all morning with nothing to do and not feeling bad enough to sleep but not quite feeling well enough to get up and find something to do. It was still better than lessons, but only just.

"Poor Jack," said the nurse, when she noted him sitting up during her walk around, crinkling and uncrinkling his blanket. "I'll get you a book. Or would you like to draw, like your friend?"

Jack considered this. He had never thought about drawing, always preferring active play or singing games, but he admired Jimmy's ability. He nodded his head, too lost in thoughts about what he might draw to realize he had answered 'yes' to an either/or question. The nurse was not too bothered by this; she kindly brought him both a book and some bits of paper and a pencil.

Jack tried his hand at drawing all morning. He was not obviously gifted in that regard, but he found he enjoyed it nonetheless. He drew bits of his pretend garden, the bits Jimmy insisted he could not draw because they were not real. Then, as time wore on, he tried the book. It was, unfortunately, the wholesome sort of book grown people think to be good for children; all lessons about being polite and kind. Jack might have somewhat enjoyed it anyway as at least it was a children's book, only it made him feel uncomfortable. He still felt like a fake because he wasn't really sick. He put the book aside. He looked at his garden. He thought about his song.

'I can make my own book,' he thought to himself. And he wrote out some of the words to his song above the picture.

Then it was mealtime again, nourishing broth again, and Jack had the whole afternoon to fill and very little to fill it with. He looked at his book and at the book about good little children. Out of boredom, he read another story from it. This time it was about a good little girl who wrote a thank you letter to her aunt for her new doll, and a wicked little girl who did not say thank you for her new doll. Both new dolls met a horrid end. The thankful girl mended her doll and told her aunt all about it and she got a new doll and then she had two dolls and she loved them very much. The wicked girl wrote her aunt and wanted a new doll because the old one was broken. She did not get a new doll. The aunt did not think she was grateful and she did not want to send her new things. The end.

For a little boy, whose only contact with dolls involved Sophia, it was not a particularly interesting read. It also made him feel a little bit unhappy. It reminded him of Sophia's doll, and how Sophia had snuck the doll into his bag, and how the witch had taken it away. It made him remember Sophia and all the Bianchis and he felt maybe he was ill after all.

He turned his mind to nicer things in self-defense, like his new friends, and how well the giant bed had worked, and his garden book that he had written all by himself, even if it was only two pages long.

And there, in the quiet of the afternoon, left alone to his thoughts, his thoughts had a chance to intertwine and grow into something new. It ended with him making a sudden decision, which did not feel sudden at all, but like he had intended to do it all along and only just remembered.

"I should write the nice mayor," he said to himself. And left alone, with paper and a pencil at hand, that is exactly what he did.


	9. Chapter 9

_Dear Mr. Mayor,_

_I live in the cotuj. I want to thank you for the nice shoos and munny and things you give us. Thank you very much. I no you are a nice man becuz you give us nice things. But the __wich-scribble scribble__, Madam who looks after us is not nice. She does not give us nice things. We have old shoos, and not enuff beds and we only eat cabuj from our garden. She is not nice. I think you shud no. You are nice, and we thank you, but pleeze, send her away so we can have the nice things you try to give us._

_Sincerely,_

_Ja-scribble__a bo-scribble__ the cotuj_

The letter, Jack thought, had some imperfections about it. He was not at all sure about some of the spelling, for instance, having only heard the word 'cottage' rather than seeing it written out. He was also not sure about the correct way to bring something so important, but also so uncomfortable, to someone's attention. He knew if he were giving money to someone to help them, then he would want to know if someone was stealing it. But it was difficult to actually say the words.

He did realize that calling Madame 'the witch' would likely not help. All in all, he was painfully aware of how juvenile his letter looked. The thank you letter in the book he just read was written in neat flowing script, and the girl had checked in the dictionary to be sure of spelling. Jack didn't have a dictionary, and the only one he knew of was in the schoolroom, and he wouldn't dare take his letter to there. He didn't dare share it with anyone; it had to go to the mayor or to no one at all. At least he knew he got the ending right, aside from the scribble where he started to put his own name. Of course it would not do to _sign_ such a letter. If the witch saw it! It would be terrible if she knew what he was doing. But the _sincerely_ was carefully copied from the little girl's letter in the book, so he was certain of that, and the _dear_ at the start too, though of course hers went 'Dear Auntie'.

"I will just copy it out again, now it's done, in my best writing without all the scribbled out bits," he decided, inside his head. Then he tucked the letter in the most secret place he could find on short notice; behind the drawer to the little table next to his bed. It was full of cloths when he opened it, and he was able to slip the letter in the space between the drawer and the back. He thought it would only be for a short while. He would just take a short break because he was suddenly quite tired, and then rewrite his letter.

He never got the chance. Because, though the day had started out well, and gone on to be a bit boring but productive, it ended with Jack discovering he really was truly sick after all. The sort of miserable sick that does leave a person too heavy to move from one's bed, and achy and sleepy and all out uncomfortable.

He discovered this when he woke to the nurse wanting him to take the thermometer into his mouth, and it was not at all a nice thing to wake up to, though in fact Jack was rather lucky, considering what the nurse's backup plan had been in regard to getting Jack's temperature taken.

"Tsk tsk," said the nurse when she saw the reading, and Jack almost wanted to apologize for it, only he felt too miserable to speak in that moment.

Even worse came later, when he was just barely awake enough to hear the nurse turning someone away, saying, "I'm afraid Jack won't be coming back to your dorm tonight."

"Is he quite, quite ill?" came Jimmy's solemn voice.

"He needs rest and quiet and I'm sure he will be better in no time," answered the nurse's voice. And Jack knew he was going to have to stay all alone for the whole night away from all his friends.

Or perhaps the worst was when he had to take medicine, which was quite awful and he rather thought it made him feel worse not better. But then he fell asleep and had the sort of very real, very strange dreams that come to the ill, and he hardly even noticed that he was alone.

All in all, it was one of the worst nights he'd had at the Cottage, though not the worst he would have.

He woke up either very late at night, or very early in the morning, depending on one's perspective. The ward was quiet, except for the little girl who was moaning softly. Jack awoke with a sharp gasp, and he felt very strange. He felt warm and cold at the same time, and like his limbs were too heavy to move, but at the same time like he _needed_ to move.

He got up, feeling the cold floor beneath his feet, and felt as though he were floating, as though he weren't really there.

At that moment, it felt perfectly right that he needed to post his very important letter. He did not worry about the spelling, or the handwriting, or that he wanted to write it over again neater. He simply knew it needed to be posted.

He did not know how to post a letter. Not really. In the strange, not really there mood he was in, this did not seem to matter much. He fetched his secret letter from its hiding spot, and set out into the early late darkness.

He was not locked in, not like he would have been had he been in his dorm. Quietly, half convinced he must still be dreaming, and not much noticing how cold it was, he walked barefoot down the hall, down the stairs, and towards the door to the outside. Naturally, he went towards the garden door, that being the one he was most used to.

It was locked. So was the door to the rose garden. He did not even try for the main door. He stood in front of the locked door, and he frowned.

Then, just as though it were a dream, where such things make perfect sense, he went instead to his window, the one he sat at when he was sent from the classroom. He could see the large star filled sky and the full moon that made the grounds almost glow with its eerie light.

He was not so far gone as to try and fly out the window. He opened it, felt the cool night morning air, and it felt almost like the touch of some loving hand against his aching skin.

"I must post this letter to the mayor," he told the wind, and he held it out. With the strangeness that he felt, he would not have been surprised if the wind had answered, or if some kindly animal had swooped down to take his letter. There was no answer though, nor any kindly animal.

There was another gust of sudden wind, harsher than the first caress. In his weakened state, he did not have the strongest hold on his letter to begin with. It was torn from his fingers and swept away.

"Thank you," Jack told the wind, because that felt polite, and then he closed the window and walked all the long way back to his bed, feeling sleepier and stranger with every step.

When he awoke in the morning, late because the nurse let him be and didn't make him join the less ill for breakfast, he half thought it was a fever dream. He felt less strange and more achy, and sticky and gross, and the idea that the wind would post his letter for him did not seem likely at all. Only, when he snuck a peek into his hiding place, the letter was gone.

He felt rather ill in that moment, the kind of illness that had nothing to do with germs. Had he really tossed the letter out the window? Anyone could find it! The witch herself might find it! The one person he could be almost certain to _not_ find it was the mayor. What a waste. And he wasn't at all certain he remembered it well enough to re-write it half as well a second time.

The second day of being ill was less enjoyable by far than the first; he was now ill enough to be miserable but not so ill to sleep through it, and even knowing that he was allowed to miss out on all the unpleasant parts of the Cottage did not make up for also missing out on the companionship of the other boys. Trudy, he decided, was quite wrong wanting to be ill.

He thought about Trudy in part from boredom and in part because she stopped by the ward twice that day; once with a horrifically fake cough which the nurse was kind enough to tell her she did not think it serious instead of scolding her like most grown people would, and again with a rather more real cough.

"You will hurt your throat in the end," the nurse told her, almost scolding.

"But" cough "I am" cough "really sick" cough cough "this time!" cough cough cough.

Either Trudy had greatly enhanced her acting skills over the course of the morning or she had, in fact, developed a bit of a cough. Jack, who was half awake and half asleep, listened to the exchange with some interest.

"Yes," said the nurse, "But you are aggravating it on purpose."

"I am not!" Trudy's voice answered, indignant. Then, almost as an afterthought, cough cough. There was a sigh from the nurse.

"And what does aggravate mean?" she asked. Trudy did not answer right away. Jack would not have been able to either.

"Faking?" Trudy guessed.

"It means, you have a cough, but you are trying to cough harder than you need to. You are going to hurt your throat, doing that. Well, let's find a bed for you."

"You mean I can stay?" Trudy sounded more astonished than delighted.

"You do have a nasty cough," the nurse answered, and Jack couldn't see it, but he rather thought the nurse winked at Trudy. Then Jack managed to drift back into miserable half sleep, until it was medicine time again, and he half forgot about Trudy and thought about his letter instead, and his friends, and wondered how they were getting on.

That afternoon Jack felt much better, but worn out to the bones. He sat up for a meal of broth, and the nurse declared his fever entirely gone and insisted he had a bath while his sheets got changed.

"Does this mean I'm well again and I can go back to the dorm?" Jack asked.

"Not in the least," the nurse answered, sounding almost shocked at the very idea. "We don't want you relapsing."

Jack might have argued but he fell asleep again instead.

The end result was that it was again the middle of the night when he awoke, properly awoke, feeling almost entirely better and, thanks to sleeping all the day, his body seemed to feel it must be morning and time to move about.

He climbed out of his bed, just as he had that night when the world had felt strange. He shivered, from the cold rather than fever this time, for he felt it like he hadn't when his body was heating him up from the inside. He didn't go anywhere, just stood and enjoyed the feeling of standing without the ground swaying beneath his feet and without his legs threatening to dump him on the floor.

He had half decided to find the papers the nurse had given him and have a try at rewriting his letter when another figure pushed aside the curtains by his bed.

It was so strange in the dark, and the figure was wearing white, that he was quite certain it was a ghost. He hadn't decided whether that was frightening or interesting when the figure spoke and it wasn't a ghost at all. It was Trudy.

"I told you it is wonderful being ill," she said in a whisper.

"No it wasn't," answered Jack. He found he was disappointed she wasn't a ghost after all. He wasn't sure how he felt about girls, but a ghost would have been fun.

"It was awful hard work to get here, though," she continued, just as though he hadn't disagreed with her. "I stood in the mop bucket half the morning until Jenny caught me at it, and not a single sniffle! Everyone says it's wet feet or wet hair that does it, but it didn't. Oh well, I suppose I managed in the end. Perhaps it was holding hands with you. I licked my hand, after. That was almost as good as a kiss."

Jack stared at her. At any rate, Trudy did not seem to need him to answer back. She sat on his bed, coughed into her arm, much more quietly than when she had been putting it on for the nurse, and looked about the small space, before continuing the conversation herself.

"I heard you were quite bad off," she said. "Roger said he supposed you'd die, and it would be awful, especially now he doesn't need your bed."

"You talked to Roger?" Jack asked, surprised. He couldn't imagine when they could manage it; the boys lived such separate lives from the girls.

"We have secret meetings in the lavatory," she answered with a conspiratory whisper. "We say we are going to be married, but I think Roger just likes the daring of having secret meetings with a girl. I know that's why I like to meet with him. That, and he is awful fun. But you look better now. Were you shamming or were you really ill?"

"I was really ill," Jack answered. Trudy did not look entirely convinced. But then she shrugged.

"If you like, you could be my secret beau instead," she suggested. "We could pass notes to each other."

It might be interesting to know that somehow this exchange failed to be included in Jack's story when he related it to Jane, many years later. This was not so much due to time obscuring his memory of the conversation as pure instinct, a pointless one in fact; if he had included it, Jane likely would have laughed. In fact, it was almost impossible to forget the finer points of the conversation, as Trudy had a point of her own to make regarding notes.

"Like the note you tossed out the window," she said, and with a magician's flourish, she brandished Jack's letter to the mayor from within her nightgown.

Jack was so utterly shocked by this unexpected return, that for long seconds he had no words, could not even begin to process how he should respond, but instead he stared at her, gaping.

"You do look stupid, Jack," Trudy said, though her tone was kind, as she reached out to tap his chin and shut his mouth. "And it was quite stupid to throw a letter out the window that is all about how evil the witch is. You know, I heard she flies around at night as an owl or a bat, and she could have seen you."

"How did you see me?" Jack managed to ask at last.

"I was enjoying the night air, trying to come down with something horrible," she answered, just as though that were quite sensible. "And I saw you in the window. I thought maybe you were going to jump out and be smashed and it would be quite horrific…" her tone suggested she was looking forward to this horror, "but you just held out a bit of paper and dropped it. So of course I went and found it, and I read it and I can say you have horrible spelling, even for a sixer."

"I'm seven," said Jack, almost without meaning to, "And I was going to rewrite it over." He did not mention that the bad spelling would likely have stayed in. "And how did you even get outside? All the doors were locked."

"Nuh-uh. I have my secrets. You will have to give me something to get them." And she looked at Jack expectantly. Jack had no idea what she was looking for. He blinked at her.

"Anyway, how did you think the letter would get to the mayor if you threw it out the window?" she asked. Jack wanted to say 'I have my secrets' in return, particularly as it sounded better than, 'I don't know, it seemed a good idea at the time', but he had a sudden thought that maybe Trudy knew more about posting letters than he did, and he might even get her to tell him if he didn't say something to annoy her. Anyway, it was dangerous annoying someone holding an incriminating letter. He didn't _think_ she was likely to tell the witch, but one never knew, especially with girls.

"I am nine, by the way," she said suddenly, apropos of nothing, when he took too long to answer. Jack rather thought she was lying and immediately adjusted that to 'seven or eight', but he was careful not to say that out loud. She was taller than him, but not by very much, and he did not think a nine year old would care about secret meetings with boys so much younger than her. Instead he said, "Can I have my letter back?"

"It isn't really your letter, is it? It's signed 'The Cottage'. At least I think that's what is meant. 'Cottage' is spelled with a g, not a j. Everyone know that."

"Everyone who is nine, maybe," said Jack, and she looked pleased. "I'll bet you know a lot more than me. I'll bet…I'll bet you even know how to post a letter. Without throwing it out a window, I mean."

"As a matter of fact, I do," she answered, preening. But then, "Don't think I don't know what you're doing. It is risky, posting letters. I want something in return, if I'm to do something so dangerous."

"Tell me how, and I'll do all the dangerous bits," Jack suggested.

"Nuh-uh. It involves sneaking out, after dark, and you don't have a good enough secret for that secret, I can tell. No, we'll re-write your letter all neat, and I'll get it into the post. If you do something for me."

"What?" asked Jack, part happy that his plan might go into motion after all, but also part wary and just the slightest bit annoyed. He knew his letter needed work, but he didn't like the idea of Trudy taking over. He also suspected she wanted him to do something horrible in return. What if she asked him to kiss her again?!

"You are going to do my sampler."

"Your what?" Jack asked, after a long moment when the word 'sampler' failed to suddenly take on meaning.

"It's make work," Trudy said. "All the girls have to do it. It's just a bit of burlap, and we stitch out the alphabet and a bird. You do mine for me, and I will post your letter. And I will fix your aweful spelling."

In truth, part of what swayed Jack was the horrible book on good manners. It had been about a girl writing in neat, perfect handwriting. It seemed fate that he had Trudy in front of him. On the other hand…

"I don't know how to do stitches," Jack pointed out.

"Oh that. That's no problem. No one cares if the stitches are done well, they only care we do them at all. So I'll teach you how to sew; it shouldn't take more than ten minutes even for a stupid boy…" the 'like you' was kindly left out, "And you do my sampler. And I post your letter. Out of kindness, I might add. Since you did help me get ill. Normally I wouldn't do such dangerous work for less than five samplers."

"I suppose," Jack answered, feeling he had been cheated anyway, if only out of getting to do a dangerous and exciting feat. In fact, he rather suspected Trudy could have been persuaded to do it for nothing. Particularly since, if his letter worked, it would help all of them.

As a show of good faith, with the help of the full moon, Trudy wrote his letter over.

_Dear Mr. Mayor,_

_I live in the Cotuge. I want to thank you for the nice shoos and munney and things you give us. Thank you very much. I know you are a nice man becuse you give us nice things. But the Woman who looks after us is not nice. She does not give us nice things. We have old shoos, and not enuff beds and we only eat cabuge from our garden. She is not nice. I think you shood know. You are nice, and we thank you, but pleese, send her away so we can have the nice things you try to give us._

_Sinserly,_

_The Cotuge Children_

"I don't think the 'sincerely' is right," Jack dared to say. He also did not say that Trudy's writing was not nearly as neatly done as the little girl in the book. Her writing was much better than his, and she did seem to know how to spell. Perhaps she _was_ actually nine. Or almost nine.

"I added 'children' there, because it is more exact," Trudy answered. She did not change the spelling for _Sinserly_. "Now, I will put it away safe, and destroy the first letter."

"Can't you go and post it tonight?" Jack asked.

"No," Trudy answered, "I want proof you are going to do my sampler, first. Anyway, tomorrow is Sunday. There is no post on Sundays. Everyone knows that."

Jack wanted to say even he knew that much, and that he had forgotten what day it was. Instead, he got a sewing lesson.

Where Trudy got the needle and thread from, Jack never knew. He had a vague notion that all girls just had things like that about their persons; needles and hair ribbons and clean handkerchiefs. For the cloth to be sewn, Trudy took some cloth from the drawer where Jack had first hidden his letter. Jack thought that might be stealing, and he did not like stealing from the kind nurse, but Trudy laughed when he suggested it.

"It's just a bit of cloth," she said. "And anyway, stitches can be pulled out after and we can put it back again." That turned out to be misleading; stitches couldn't not be undone as neatly as erasing chalk on a board, but it did calm Jack's misgivings in the moment.

It was also not true that sewing could be taught in ten minutes. What could be taught was the concept of sewing; that a needle is threaded and used to drag thread through cloth. Nonetheless, Jack managed to sew two bits of cloth together under Trudy's questionable tutelage. The end result was messy, in part due to Jack's novice rank and in part due to the droplets of blood that now stained the cloth; Jack did not learn how to manage a needle without some slight mishaps.

"We can't put it back with blood," Jack had pointed out, after Trudy grudgingly decided Jack could stitch well enough to do a passable sampler.

"It's a good thing no one expects much from my samplers," she said. "And don't ask me how to get blood out. I know girls are supposed to know that sort of thing, but I never can manage it. We'll just have to hide it."

This should have alarmed Jack, who hadn't wanted to steal the cloth outright, but in truth, he was so pleased with his first attempt at sewing, that he hadn't actually wanted to undo it. It was fascinating, the ability to turn a bit of cloth into something else.

"We could stuff a bit of fluff into it, and make it into a ball. Or a bear…or…or anything," he said.

"That would make a very poor ball or bear or anything," Trudy pointed out. Jack was not dismayed by her criticism, still admiring the little bit of cloth that was now halfway to being a ball or bear or anything, if only he worked it a little further. "Never mind. I'm sure the sampler will be lovely. Now…I do think we had better go back to bed before we are caught. You look the type to fold under questioning."

"I am not," answered Jack, indignant. He was, in fact, more likely to be unable to answer anything under questioning, whether he wanted to or not, but he did not feel like sharing that with Trudy. At any rate, her suggestion had merit. The two parted, back to their separate beds.

Jack still felt quite awake, and wondered how long it was until morning, and he was quite certain he would stay awake all through the rest of the night, only to find himself wrong when he was roused by the nurse while sunlight filled the ward.

"And not a bit of a fever," the nurse said approvingly.

"Does that mean I'm well and can go back to my dorm?" Jack asked.

"It means you are to rest today, and maybe, if you are still just as well this evening, I'll let you go then."

It was a very boring day.


	10. Chapter 10

Jack was allowed to return to his friends on Monday evening. Trudy, who was not so much allowed as ordered back to her friends, could not understand Jack's joy.

"You _want_ to go back to drudgery and horrid food and horrid taskmasters?" she demanded.

"I like being with my friends," Jack answered. "And I feel wrong if I lay about eating chicken and raisins if I know they're being miserable and working and having cabbage. Don't you feel wrong?"

"I feel wrong when I'm made to be miserable and work and eat cabbage," she answered. "And you must know it's horrid or you wouldn't have written...a silly story about a silly garden." Then she patted the pocket to her dress where Jack's letter was hidden, just to be certain Jack knew what she was really talking about.

They shouldn't really have been walking together; Trudy's room was in the opposite direction of Jack's, but she had decided he needed an escort.

"Now, do you still have the burlap and thread?" Trudy asked, this in an even lower whisper, and now it was Jack's turn to pat his pocket where the burlap was. The plan was that if anyone asked, he would say it was a handkerchief because he had been so ill. The actual needle and thread was safely hidden in Jack's sock. That is to say it was hidden there; whether that was entirely safe for Jack was debatable as the needle had a tendency to come loose when he least wanted it to.

"Will you do it tonight?" Jack asked, also in a whisper.

"Of course. I'm doing it on faith, mind, that you will finish that sampler by next Sunday."

"I could go with you," Jack said, something he had been trying for over the entire course of their acquaintance.

"I told you, it's my secret how I get out. Anyway, you'd just get us caught."

It was not very comfortable, trusting something so very important and so dangerous, entirely to someone else, especially to a girl he did not know very well or count among his friends. Though, he supposed if she really did post his letter, she must be a friend of sorts.

Trudy was not to be swayed. She walked him all the way to his dorm, and not a word would she say about the mysterious methods she intended to employ that evening to escape the Cottage, or the mysterious process that was posting a letter.

It might have been better if she had left before Jack opened the door. Some of the calamity that was to follow might have been averted. Then again, it might have ended worse.

Trudy did stay until he opened the door though, and blew him a kiss before abruptly turning away and skipping down the hall, presumably towards her own dorm, though Jack rather thought she intended to take the long way back.

Jack, by himself, might have been able to slip quietly in. He would likely have still caused a small uproar upon his return, with demands to know how ill he had been, and if he had really almost died, and what it was like, while Jack in return would want to know how they had spent their days.

Trudy did not know the meaning of the word unobtrusive (rather a failing in the person meant to do a bit of late night sneaking), and Jack did not get a quiet moment to slip into the room.

"Jack!" voices cried at once, and "Who was that?" "Was that a _girl_?!" "How do you know Trudy?" The last was Roger, of course.

"That was Trudy," Jack explained. "She was ill with me, and she wanted to walk me back. I'm all better now."

Girls were strange creatures to the majority of the boys, particularly those boys who arrived at the Cottage too young to remember any other home. The interest Jack's simple acquaintance generated greatly eclipsed the interest in his illness.

That is not to say that Jack wasn't welcomed for himself as well; Octavius gave him a hug, which was followed by several of the other boys, which quickly turned into a bit of a wrestling match, which Jack mostly lost, due in part to having just recovered and so not having the strength of some of his companions and in part due to laughing.

Jack was glad to be back.

"Just what were you doing with Trudy?" Roger repeated, frowning.

"I told you, she was ill, too."

"Well, and do you _like_ her, then?"

Jack, aged seven, was not in the least capable of understanding what Roger meant by that. Roger himself probably didn't know what he meant. Jack and Roger were friends, but Roger did not sound like a friend in that moment. The other boys did not know what stance to take on the matter either. Girls were alien creatures to them all, and it was at once impressive and concerning to know one, and they did not know if they should condemn Jack or praise him.

"I suppose you'll like her more than us, now, and want to go meet up with her," Roger went on.

"Stop it," Jimmy ordered sternly, sensing Roger's mood and knowing how quickly Roger's moods could turn into wrestling matches that were just a bit too rough and end in proper fights.

"I'm not doing anything," Roger answered, arms crossed. "Jack's the one with a new friend."

"Jack is my friend," said Jimmy, "And he's been ill. So you just don't."

And Jimmy was bigger than Roger, and Roger was not so lost in his mood to pick a fight with him, especially when anyone could see most all the boys were on Jack's side. So Roger stomped off by himself, feeling alone and put upon and a whole host of feelings he was rather too young to name but not too young to feel.

Jack looked after him, feeling bad for him and not knowing what to do with that either.

"Leave him," said Jimmy. "That's just Roger. Let's get into our bed and settle in and you can tell us about being ill and we will tell you about how Davy almost got his hand whipped by Master Berring and Simon lost a tooth."

That is what they did, and it was such a comfortable jumble on the bed that Jack forgot about Roger and had a wonderful evening catching up with his friends. Roger went to bed too, in the end, but lay at the very edge, not cuddled up against anyone, and was left alone.

It was morning before Jack awoke, and then remembered his letter, and that Trudy was meant to post it in the night, and he wondered if she had. He felt strange over that letter; hopeful and scared, like he wished he had done it sooner and he wished he had never even thought the idea and could now take it back.

It made him almost feel ill, and look it too, enough that Jimmy said, "Are you ill again, Jack? Do you need to go to the nurse?"

"I'm fine," Jack answered, and then, "I'm not ill." One of those statements was true.

It was Henderson who woke them that morning, luckily with no water this time. He glared at them as they moved the beds back into place. Jack did not think Henderson was glaring at him particularly more than anyone else. He hoped Henderson did not still hate him. Henderson, for his part, did not even seem to notice Jack as he escorted them to the garden and told them to get to it. It was not Henderson who turned out to be cross with Jack.

It was a planting day. It made Jack think about his garden, where anything could grow, and he smiled. Roger, across from him, frowned.

"Aren't you going to sing today?" he asked. "Sing that we're planting jelly bean trees?"

If the question had been asked out of true curiosity or interest, Jack might have sung, and likely would have ended in trouble, or at the least with Henderson remembering he hated him. The question had not been kindly asked. Jack stared at Roger instead.

"Go on, then, little lark, go on and sing," Roger pushed, his expression vicious. "Or are you too scared to, now?"

"Less noise there, more digging" Henderson called.

Jack did not sing.

"Or maybe we should plant a dumb little boy and see what grows," Roger suggested, and he dumped a clod of dirt over Jack's head.

Jack was not naturally combative, but he was not without pride. His second instinct was to retaliate and dump dirt on Roger. His first instinct was to laugh. And imagine a garden full of growing children. And that is what he did.

If Jack had been alone with Roger, the end result would likely have been Roger calling him 'batty' and then laughing himself, and maybe Jack would have dumped dirt on Roger and maybe he wouldn't, but if he did, the tussle that followed would have been between friends.

Jack was not alone and his friends did not laugh. Octavius dumped a whole shovelful of dirt on Roger. Roger turned red and looked ready to attack in earnest. A war very nearly erupted.

Nearly, because in the moment just before Roger could spring in retaliation, or Jack could defend Octavius, or Jimmy could attempt to push between them, or Henderson could shout about whippings or try to dump cold water over them all or do something worse to break them up, they were interrupted.

A sudden gust of wind whipped through the garden, harsh and brisk and lively. That is not what stopped the war.

"Hey, hey!" a voice shouted, as a body burst through the gate to the garden. The interruption was so unexpected and out of the norm that it stopped the fight in its tracks. Henderson never even noticed what had been averted. Everyone stared at the boy who panted at the entrance. He was not a teenager, but he was older than the sixers by a good bit, and wasn't a boy any of them knew.

"Yes?" Henderson demanded.

"All wanted…in assembly" the boy panted out. "The Witch..." And then he turned red, or at least redder, and said, "Which is where Madame wants us," just as though he always meant that.

Even Henderson turned pale at those words. The witch calling an unexpected assembly was never a good thing.

"Well, let's go then," Henderson said. The boy ran off, likely to gather all the other groups from their chores. Henderson had them line up. He didn't let them wash.

"I'm not having us be late and being blamed. You should've been more careful in the dirt if you're dirty," he said. Jack did his best to shake the dirt out of his hair. So did Roger. For the moment, the two boys felt united by their common difficulty. Some fights were like that, even almost fights, and nothing could unite fighters like a common enemy. By the time they were lined up, Roger had quite forgotten that he was cross with Jack and felt they were the best of friends.

Jack did not think about Roger at all. He thought about his letter, and how it was meant to be posted that morning, and now there was an assembly, and he couldn't help but have a horrible feeling that maybe the two things were related.

"Are you alright?" Octavius whispered to Jack. "Did you get dirt in your eyes?"

"No talking," Jimmy whispered harshly. And then, "Are you alright, Jack?"

"Fine," Jack answered.

That was not exactly a lie. It just turned out Jack was mistaken.

They assembled in the cafeteria, only everyone was told to face the dais, no matter which side of the table they were sat on. The fives and sixes were closest to the dais, and had no table to shield them as it was at their back. Jack found himself in the middle, squeezed in-between Roger and Jimmy, just like his very first day. He tried to peer over towards the girls to see if he could find Trudy. He didn't find her before Jimmy hissed at him to get him to face front. Jack didn't need Jimmy stepping on his foot to understand that this was a moment for perfect behavior.

The witch came out to face them. She looked stern, and tall, and very much like she had the power to turn little children into mice or slugs or something else horrible and unpleasant. She said nothing. She stood at the dais and watched as group after group rushed in and took their place, until finally all the Cottage was there, except for the little ones younger than five.

There was silence as the door closed after the last of them, an unlucky group of twelve year old girls who tried to scurry silently into their place and consequently fell over each other and made more noise than if they'd just gone normally.

Everyone waited to see if the witch was going to turn the entire twelves group into insects.

The witch did not. She stood silently, looking over everyone, judging them with a cruel curl to her lip. And then, at last, she did speak.

"Someone," she said, her voice carrying in the absolute silence, "Some foolish someone has done a very foolish thing."

Then she paced, stepping down from the dais and walking towards the first row. Jack held his breath, waiting for her judgement to fall upon him. But she did not stop, just walked down the middle of the rows, between the girls and the boys, eyes taking them all in without looking particularly at anyone. As she passed each row, the children in that row whipped about so they could watch her.

"Some foolish child," the witch said as she walked, "Thinks itself _clever_. I do everything for you children. I see you are clothed. I see you have food. I see you have education!"

The fury was rising in her voice.

"Just look at you! Dirty! Stupid! Children!" And then she stopped at the end of the room. She was not facing any of the children now, not even the teens. Jack could see Donald and Henderson and the others at the very last, and then beyond them, were grown people. There were more grown people than Jack would have thought were in the entire Cottage, at least ten. Jack only recognized one of them; Master Berring. His teacher was there.

The witch stood in front of Master Berring and the adults. Jack wondered if she was going to shout at them and call them dirty or foolish or stupid. She didn't.

"Professors," she said, her voice sickly kind, and more disturbing than her shouting had been. "I have a task for you. I want you to take a look at this…this writing. And I want you to tell me which child in your class, which horrid, bad, repulsive child thought to write this!" And she held up a piece of paper.

Jack was far too far away to see what was on the paper. He rather thought he knew anyway.

"Here's a hint," the witch went on. "The name will start with a 'J'."

And that is when Jack knew he was wrong. And right. The witch did have his letter. His first letter. The one Trudy was meant to destroy.

What had Trudy done?

The professors looked at the piece of paper. And then Master Berring cleared his throat.

Jack felt he was about to faint.

"I cannot say I know who wrote that letter," said Master Berring. Jack heard a sort of roaring in his ears, so loud he thought maybe he had only imagined his teacher saying those words. Maybe he had really said, 'That's Jack's handwriting, of course, I would know it anywhere'. Except of course he would be 'Mr. Sharp' to Master Berring.

"But…" said Master Berring. Jack seriously wondered if anyone else could hear his heart beating, because it was so loud in Jack's ears. It was so loud, with a rushing sort of roar, and yet he could not help but hear what Master Berring had to say. "But I can tell you the trouble makers in my class."

"No student of mine wrote that," another professor announced loftily. "I beat that bad spelling out of them at the start of term! Imagine, spelling 'cottage' with a j!"

"They did get 'sincerely' right," a somewhat kinder sounding professor pointed out, adjusting his glasses for a closer look.

"Any of my repulsive lot are capable," said yet another, a woman. "There is a Jenny among mine."

"And yours?" the Witch said, turning away from the adults to the row of teenagers. Donald stepped forward.

"My lot all know spelling by the time I get them," he said. "And they respect their betters."

And Jack knew Donald just wanted to please the witch, but somehow those words hurt anyway. He did not like to imagine Donald thinking him disrespectful.

The Witch was silent for a long moment. Then, "Bring me your troublemakers. Line them up."

The professors descended upon the children. Not quite all of them. The kinder sounding man mumbled something about 'none in my entire class' and Donald didn't move either. Henderson did, as did a couple more of the teenagers. Master Berring moved. He strode over to the sixers with stern steps and looked them over.

He stopped in front of Jimmy. For a long moment, a new and sudden and horrid thought occurred to Jack. _Jimmy's name started with J too_. What if Jimmy was hauled in front of the Witch and they decided he wrote the letter?

But Master Berring did not pull Jimmy aside. He gave him a stern look, said, "Stand up straight, boy!" and moved on. He did the same for Roger, and for Octavius, and for Simon. Then he stopped in front of Jack.

"Mr. Sharp," he said. He did not say stand up straight. "You have not been in class for days."

"He's been ill, sir," Jimmy said, knowing quite well Jack would not be able to defend himself. Just this once, Jack would rather Jimmy didn't. Didn't Jimmy realize his name started with J? Jack's fear over it, in fact, was greater than the hold on his tongue.

"I was with the nurse, sir," he stammered out for himself, desperate to keep the man's attention away from Jimmy.

"Likely story," Master Berring said. "You skipped out on your extra maths problems. You are always disrupting my class and being sent out. And just look at you! Crooked as a question mark and covered head to toe in dirt!"

And then, Jack was finally able to stop worrying about Jimmy and remember to worry about himself. Because the next thing he knew, Master Berring had a rough hand about his arm and was pulling him away from his peers.

"Here's a trouble maker, if ever there was one!" he announced. And Jack joined the unlucky group of other trouble children before the dais.


	11. Chapter 11

There were eight children in all, including Jack, who were singled out. Jack did not know any of the other children except for one. Trudy was not among them. Jenny was. She looked rather pale; they all did, except for the boy with curly brown hair who looked a bit green. She did not look at Jack. None of them looked at each other.

The witch looked at them. She stared, pacing around the small group with accusing eyes.

"So you are the troublemakers," she said. And then she smiled. A smile was so at odds with the situation that it was worse than the glare. "Well. I know what do with troublemakers. And which ones of you have a name that starts with J?"

None of them volunteered themselves. They looked down at their shoes. They looked back towards their friends.

"Well?" said the witch, only this time she had turned to the professors.

"That one's name is Jenny," a woman professor announced, and she waved her hand at Jenny. "Jenny Miller."

Jack felt like his legs might drop him at any moment, like he had forgotten how breathing works. What would he do if they decided Jenny had written his letter?

"It won't be her," said the witch, dismissively. "It's a 'J-a' name I want, not a 'J-e'."

"That rotten little troublemaker there is a James," said another professor, waving at the green looking child.

"I brought you a John," Henderson announced, not nastily, just factually. "I suppose it wasn't him."

"Hmm," said the witch. She was looking closely at James. James looked like he was going to either be sick, pass out, or both. Jack did not look at him. He waited for Master Berring to announce him as 'Jack'. He waited for the witch herself to remember his name. He waited for Henderson to call him out.

"Any other J's in the group?" asked the witch. No one spoke. "Well then." She approached James. "You thought it would be funny, did you, you nasty little troublemaking mongrel? You thought…"

"My name is Jack."

It actually took Jack a moment to discover who had spoken. He was as surprised as anyone to hear the words.

"Oh yes, that's right," said Master Berring. "I can never keep their given names straight. He's Jack Sharp. Had to give him extra maths exercises for being wool headed. Crooked little brat skipped out on them. Haven't seen him in class in days."

"I've been ill," Jack said, somehow his voice still coming in spite of all the malicious eyes now zeroed in on him.

"He isn't on the list," Master Berring objected. For a moment, Jack was confused by this and thought Master Berring was lying. He had seen the nurse add his name to the sick list. But then Master Berring continued. "Not a Sharp on it. I always check."

"My name is Jack," said Jack, and he listened to his own voice going on with a strange sense of detached wonder. There was no Jimmy or Octavius to step on his toes, but he knew this was all wrong, that he should be silent. He should be silent because his voice should refuse to come. And he should be silent, because it was the smart thing to do. Those were the rules for the Cottage. One did not speak back to the adults or the teens, one did not argue when placed in the wrong age group under the wrong name, and above all, one did not speak back to the witch. But Jack was feeling something strange. It was almost the exact opposite of what he felt when he could not speak. It was a feeling inside that meant he had to speak. He had to speak before he lost himself and actually became six year old Jack Sharp who never knew a word that wasn't English. He had to speak or disappear.

"My name is Jack Ascua, and I am seven years old."

"Nonsense," said Master Berring. "You are a naughty little sixer and your name is Jack Sharp. He's always saying horrible nonsense. Do you know, he once called me a 'low sea toad'."

The witch stared down at him. Jack stared down at his feet. He did not argue. He had said his words, and they were true. He felt strange. His heart was beating harshly in his chest, and he felt a deep terror but also a very strong feeling of rightness. He had said his name. No matter what happened next, he had his name.

"Jack Sharp," said the witch. "Yes, I remember. The stupid little city boy who came with a dolly in his bag and funny foreign food. Did you write to the mayor, Sharp?"

She was smiling again, which was scary. Jack glanced up at her, then down again. He did not answer.

"Well?" And her voice was harsher now, demanding obedience.

Whatever strange feeling had pushed out his words before seemed to have deserted him. He could not even form the word 'no'. Instead of pouncing on him, however, she turned again to face the other children. "Or was it you, James? Or perhaps it was a Jenny, after all?"

They did not answer either. But then, that hadn't really been a proper question that asked for an answer. The witch studied them, like she was contemplating using them in her next spell. Jack remembered every story, about her turning children into bugs, or mice, or worse. He could believe anything, in that moment.

"Maybe you are all guilty," she said to them. And she smiled again. "Maybe you are not. But you are all troublemakers. And we know what to do with those, oh yes, we do. You will spend the day in the chapel, learning to be good. And you will all write lines. Very special lines. And in the end, I will know. And you will all receive the punishment that little troublemakers deserve."

And with that threat looming over them all, the eight children, Jack included, were taken away to the chapel. It was cold in there, with the eerie sort of chilliness that comes in holy places, particularly when one has to enter them under disgrace and be left alone in a space meant to hold many.

It was the teen Richards who was left to mind them in their task. Jack did not know Richards well, but he knew of him. He looked even bigger and older than Donald. He had bristles, and a horrible look in his expression, the kind that people get who enjoy hurting others. He was the one most likely to dump water or overturn mattresses to wake the younger ones when it was his duty to wake them. If he was told to take a child out and whip them, he would not pretend like most of the teens. He really would. And he wasn't scared of Donald, like most of the others were. Threaten to tell on him, and he'd laugh and hit _harder_.

"You're all going to be whipped," he told them, conversationally, as he passed out bits of paper and pencils. "I'll bet they do it in front of everyone. Don't matter if you're guilty or not. That's what happens to trouble makers. She'll make an example of you, to remind all you lot who's in charge here. Maybe she'll let me do the whipping."

And he looked so excited over the idea, that Jack was rather afraid he'd decide to get a head start on it and start whipping them all then and there. But instead he gave them their lines.

"You're to write it a thousand times."

The line was this: _Dear Mr. Mayor, I live in the Cottage. I am a rotten, dirty troublemaker_.

"And if you don't do a thousand by the end of the day, you'll get twice the punishment!" Richards announced. He sounded hopeful.

At first, it was absolutely horrible. They had to write those lines over and over, until their hands cramped. Richards stood over them, 'accidentally' knocking their pencils from their fingers or nudging their pages so they wrote crooked, then making them start the page over.

After a while, though, he tired of that game and grew bored of calling them names or bumping them. Two somewhat terrified looking girls brought a plate of food around one in the afternoon (all for Richards, none for the rest of them, who hadn't even gotten breakfast), and he waved his plate in front of their noses and laughed when their stomachs growled, but then suddenly seemed to grow bored of them.

"Just keep at it, or it will be worse for you," he said. And he went and took a nap.

They kept at it. But when it was clear Richards was really asleep, and not about to spring up and catch them at it, they whispered.

"Who did write that note, whatever it was?" asked one of the older boys.

"Oh, no one say," said the green boy, James. "If we don't know, we can't tell."

"My hand is going to fall off," complained a girl. "What horrid long lines. And what a funny start. Why do we have to write that about the mayor?"

"It was in the letter." This was Jenny, who spoke with authority. "_She's_ going to compare our handwriting to the letter to see who wrote it."

Jack, it must be confessed, had grown somewhat numb to fear during the tedium of doing lines. This was the first time he realized the danger in them. He had done hundreds already, and not once had he even thought to disguise his handwriting. He stared at Jenny with wide eyes.

"Did you write it, then, Jenny Miller?" asked the first boy. He sounded somehow scornful, and angry, and impressed all at the same time.

"No," answered Jenny. "But it doesn't matter who wrote it. What matters is that the letter wasn't posted."

"What letter?" most everyone asked, for of course, most of them did not know anything about it. Jack was slightly confused how Jenny seemed to know so much. She was Trudy's friend, of course, but he hadn't thought Trudy would tell anyone about it.

"It was a letter to the mayor. It was to tell him how horrible the witch is, and how she takes his money and doesn't give us anything."

Now several voices said 'shush' even as they stared at Jenny in awe. To outright call the witch by that title, when they were in the chapel and facing punishment! There 'shh's hissed in a low echo throughout the chapel.

"What happened to the letter?" Jack asked, once the sound had faded. Everyone looked at Jenny. Jenny somehow managed to look at everyone except for Jack when she answered.

"A…friend…threw the letter in the fire. She had to. Some apples had gone missing in the kitchen, and we were all being searched and…and she wanted to add the letter to the morning post but she never had the chance…"

And it was horrible, but at the same time, Jack could not help but think 'Trudy acted like she was going on a daring midnight adventure…not sneaking the letter into the morning post'. And he almost wanted to giggle. The horribleness of everything won out, however, and he didn't. Jenny spoke on.

"She threw both letters in the fire without looking. I suppose…I suppose one of the letters missed."

"And here we are," muttered the older boy. He sounded purely bitter in that moment. "And we're all going to get it, because some stupid kid tried to write a stupid letter and couldn't even burn it properly."

"She should write it again," Jenny answered, sounding fierce. "It was the right thing."

"Like the mayor cares about us. Even if he _did_ get a letter."

Jack felt about as stupid and small in that moment as his lines suggested him to be. It was stupid to write the mayor. And now they were all going to be in trouble, not just Jack. But Jenny did not seem to agree.

"It doesn't matter if he cares, or if he doesn't care. It's a letter to show _we_ care."

And then Richards stirred, and the whispers stopped. All except for one whisper. The whisper Jenny said to Jack alone, almost too quiet for Jack to hear, let alone anyone else.

"Write with your wrong hand. It won't look like your handwriting then."

In fact, writing with his wrong hand did not look much like writing at all, Jack discovered, when he tried it.

The worst part of all was that he had several hundred lines already done. It wasn't even that he now had to do them over again, which made his hand hurt just thinking it. It was that they were evidence.

Jack stuck them in a prayer book in the end. And he wrote. And wrote. And wrote.

Towards the end, he was no longer worried, no longer much of anything. His hand ached and his arm ached. His whole body ached from doing nothing but line after line after line. His stomach felt empty, and his throat dry, and his eyes stung from working in the dim lighting of the chapel.

And then, it was over. Jack was the last to finish, having to redo a few hours' worth of work in the course of the afternoon, but when given an entire day, one thousand lines are not nearly so numerous as it first sounds. Even the slowest writers could manage them within five hours. The faster writers finished in three. Jack took six, but he still finished half an hour before they were called back to present their lines to the witch. In many ways, Jack was lucky for that. He finished in time, and he did not finish early. The ones who finished quickly had hours to sit quietly and brood.

It was Donald who came to fetch them. He did not look happy to be doing it.

"She wants you all now. Bring your lines," he announced, and Jack imagined that is the tone one would use to summon the condemned to be hanged. Serious, and sad, and empty.

Jack took his lines. They all did.

They weren't taken to the cafeteria again. They were taken to the witch's office. She looked over them all with that strange smile while Donald and Richards hovered in the background, one solemn and one smirking. She took their lines.

"Hmm," she said, as she studied each in turn. Jack felt completely drained when she got to his, like he would collapse to the floor at any moment. He waited for her to cry 'aha!'. He wondered if she had some special witch power that would let her see who wrote the letter.

It seemed she did not. She went on to the next writing.

Finally, she looked them over again and smiled.

"What do you think should be done with the little troublemakers?" she asked. She was looking at the children, but it seemed she was talking to the teens. At any rate, it was Richards who answered.

"Whip them. Give them twenty lashes. Give them fifty."

"A fitting punishment," the witch agreed. And then, "Yes. Fifty lashes each."

The worst lashing Jack had ever gotten in his life was five, and he had thought he was dying and bawled like a baby over it. He did not want to find out what fifty felt like.

"Take them, Donald, and give them their lashes. Ask the other boys to help if your arm gets tired. Then take them and have them stay the night in the chapel. They must all learn a new bible verse and be ready to recite it in front of the entire Cottage by tomorrow morning. Bible verses are just the thing to teach you to be good little children who mind your betters."

And Jack still felt a bit faint, but he also felt a bit alive again. Because she was sending them to Donald, not Richards. Surely, surely Donald would not really whip them. Or if he did, if he had to, he would not really give them fifty. Maybe five. Jack could survive five.

"Well come on, you lot," said Donald in his stern voice. They started to follow him. It was a relief. Even if he _did_ whip them, it was still a relief, just leaving the presence of the witch. Jack moved to follow. Only to be stopped.

"Not this one," said the witch, her hand coming heavily onto his shoulder.

For one moment, Jack was certain his heart had stopped. Only it hadn't because it was so loud inside his ears, he almost couldn't hear what she said next.

"Master Berring has told me all kinds of nasty little tricks this one has been up to. I think something more is needed. This one is to go to the basement. Richards, you can take him."

And Jack was pushed roughly in Richard's direction.

"No need for that, Ma'am," said Donald's voice. "I can take him as easy as the others."

"I don't mind," Richards answered. "Should I whip him first?"

There was a long pause while the witch considered Jack's fate.

"In the morning," she decided. "We can make an example of him." Then, "I do not know which repulsive child wrote this letter, but he deserves a whipping as much as any of them. I know a bad one when I see it. And after all, your name is 'Jack' is it not, Mr. Sharp?"

Jack did not answer, but she did not seem to expect him to. She made a shooing motion towards all of them.

In the hall, Donald stood chest to chest with Richards.

"If you touch him," he hissed, his voice so venomous that Jack was almost scared of him. Jack hadn't known Donald could sound like that. Richards didn't look scared, though.

"You better whip them well," said Richards. "Or I'll tell Madame you didn't do it, and you know she will check. Maybe she'll let me carry out _your_ punishment."

"Do that, or touch Jack, and you will be a permanent resident of the nurse," Donald said, his voice a low and threatening rumble. Richards saluted him mockingly, then grabbed Jack by the shoulder and dragged him away.

Richard didn't touch Jack. He dragged him down and down and down into a dark windowless room filled with old crates and cobwebs and shadows. Then he left him alone in the dark.

What followed was not the worst night of Jack's young life. That would likely forever be reserved for an even darker night, a night when he waited in vain to wake up from a nightmare to his mama's comforting voice, a voice that would never come.

But this night was a close second.


	12. Chapter 12

For the first hour, Jack sat crouched on the ground exactly where he was left. He did not dare to move. The darkness was absolute around him. He closed his eyes, and pretended that maybe _that_ was why it was dark, and not because he was trapped alone in a place with no light.

In that hour, his imagination was turned against him. He did not think about his friends or his garden or London or the sky. He thought about all the stories he had heard, about what happened to the poor children who were taken to the basement. Some, the stories whispered, never returned. Perhaps the witch would come in the middle of the night to slice him up or turn him into something horrible. Perhaps something in the basement would come out to eat him. Perhaps…

There were noises. The basement was mostly silent, but there were creaks and groans around him, as though the whole cottage was settling itself on top of him and moaning over it. There were other noises. Tiny noises, the kinds that, in daylight, one would never notice, never even hear. The almost silent slinkings and skitterings of tiny movements.

When Jack noticed them, he fancied he heard footsteps creeping towards him. Tiny, barely there patterings of feet as some unknown creature approached.

Jack was absolutely right. There were creatures in the basement with him. In the darkness.

Time became strange. His heart beat hard in his chest, and his breathing went ragged, and it felt like he was locked frozen into his position, crouching down on his heels and hugging his knees, for more than a single night. It felt like days had passed. He imagined horrible monsters, and he felt how very alone he was, and he kept his eyes shut against darkness and he shivered. He was cold and hungry and very, very afraid.

And then something brushed against him in the dark and he screamed.

And the something ran. It ran loudly and obviously, a clattering noise in the dark as it escaped away from the screaming boy.

Jack stopped screaming. The basement was absolutely still and silent. And then…

"Hello?"

That was Jack's voice. He meant to form the word, but it was strange to hear his own voice. It sounded pale and young and rough, as though he had been crying, though he hadn't thought he had been.

He opened his eyes and they stung against the chilly air and he blinked at lights that were not there in the complete darkness. And then he saw lights that were. Red lights, shining like mini lanterns. Eyes in the dark. The eyes were looking at him.

Jack had been so terrified, and seeing it confirmed, that there were creatures in the dark with him, he should have started screaming again. He should have fainted. He should have huddled in his miserable ball and imagined all the horrible ways he was about to die.

Only, he _had_ screamed. The worst had happened and he had screamed and…and the creature ran away. The creature was frightened of _him_.

The absolute fact was that Jack was in very real and very mortal danger in that moment. More dangerous than the witch realized or she likely would have chosen some other dark place to lock up troublemakers; she did not mind traumatizing children but she did not want them dead. Questions would be asked.

The basement was a home for many creatures, mostly harmless; even the spiders could not have hurt Jack very much had he stumbled through their webs and incurred their bites. There were other insects, also not particularly deadly. Jack would not have enjoyed being bitten by any of them, but they could not really hurt him while he, a great lumbering monster in their eyes, could squash them flat in a moment. There were mice too, staying well away from the strange creature brought down to them. They were not a danger either.

The danger was the rats. Rats could kill a little boy. It was not that it was likely they would leap for his throat to tear it out, but they were not afraid to approach and they were not afraid to bite, (not afraid to _kill_ and _feast_) and a rat's bite is not clean and could very easily kill, if not in the first moment, then days or weeks later.

Jack did not know this. He knew there were creatures in the dark and in his mind he had imagined monsters. He had heard there were rats that would eat little children and that the witch kept them for pets. But he did not comprehend the real danger in the dark: not malicious, not evil, just wild and untamed creatures in contact with an intruder in their domain.

"Hello?" Jack called to the stranger in the dark. And Jack, for the first time since entering the basement, what felt like an eternity ago, felt something other than fear or helplessness or horror. There was someone there who was scared of _him_.

Children can react in different ways when faced with such an unexpected circumstance. Many children, quite naturally, revel in this unaccustomed power. Children are usually the ones at others' mercy, and a child does not have to be evil or malicious to enjoy having some power over another. Many an innocent childhood game involves hiding and jumping out to yell 'Boo!'. Jack was not adverse to that game himself. It's good for children to sometimes get to be the monsters and not the victims, so long as they remember to not _really_ become monsters. This was not how Jack reacted.

Some children react to inciting fear in others with revelry and some, those who have a particular tendency towards empathy, the ones who, even as babies, shown an image of a hurt animal in a storybook, will instinctively pet the animal in an effort to offer comfort, those children will not revel. They will sympathize.

"I'm sorry," Jack told the mysterious eyes, staring out at him in from the darkness. "I didn't mean to scare you. I didn't…I didn't hurt you, did I?"

There was silence, then a sort of skittering noise and a sort of 'squeak!' and the eyes approached. This, sympathy or no, was rather alarming to Jack. He still did not know what kind of creature it was. He did not know anything except that, crouched down on his heels and listening to it come closer, it seemed enormous.

"Oh," Jack said to it, holding himself very tightly and fighting the urge to skitter away himself. He felt that would be rude. "Do you…do you want to be friends? My name is Jack Ascua. They say Jack Sharp, but that is wrong." And then, because there was no reason to assume the creature knew English better than any other language, and because it felt good to do so, Jack repeated the statement in Spanish and then in Italian.

The creature in the dark did not respond in any language other than rat, for that was what it was. Jack hoped those were friendly noises. The rat was almost close enough to touch. Jack did not know if that was a good thing or a bad, but it was something.

"Perhaps…perhaps you would like a song?" Jack asked the rat. If the rat was adverse, it did not say so.

"I don't know any songs about…about mice or rats or people who live in basements…" Jack said, careful to not offend his new friend as he was not entirely sure what it was, though he rather thought 'mice' was just a hope on his part and he was absolutely right there, "Perhaps I will write one…one day. I should not like if people screamed when they saw _me_. Maybe if I sing songs about rats…or mice…or creatures…maybe people won't scream. I could do the singing game but…but I don't know the words would come. They don't when…when I'm alone in the dark…"

There was a short pause. Then Jack did sing, a lullaby his mama used to sing to him. The eyes stopped approaching and just watched him. For a very, very long while, that is how the night passed. The rat and the boy, not quite close enough to touch, not attacking or running but not necessarily friends, while the boy sang. After a bit, the rat joined in, only its songs were not particularly musical. They sounded more like a war cry. Jack kept singing anyway, though his voice went wobbly for a moment.

It was a very long night. At least, it felt to Jack like he had been there for days, and morning must surely come soon. Only when a light did come, unexpectedly from the darkness, it was not the light of an opening door. Nor was it the light of dawn, impossible as that would be in the windowless underground. It was a candle.

Jack was almost feeling friends with the strange creature of the dark, though he could not forget there was a wildness or danger about it. The sudden light was terrifying. Creatures were to be expected in a dark basement; candles were not. Was it a ghost? Was it the witch, coming to feed him to her rats or cut him up for potions or turn him into a rat himself?

"Hello?" called a voice to go with the light. It was young and high pitched. Then the light drew closer, close enough for Jack to actually see the outline of the creature with the eyes. The rat was as large as a cat, it seemed to him, with bristly dirty fur and a torn ear and a wormy sort of tail and very, very sharp teeth.

And the light came closer and the rat squealed indignantly at it, rising on its hind legs, before turning and scampering away behind Jack and into the shadows.

"Hello?" called the voice again. "I heard you singing. I know you're here."

"Are you a ghost?" Jack asked. There was a pause. Then…

"Mwahahaha!" Wicked sounding laughter came with the candle, then "Whoo, I am the ghost of the children who were locked in the basement before you."

"Trudy?" said Jack. The carrier of the candle stomped closer until she could clearly be seen by her own light. She was covered in cobwebs and looked eerily pale by candlelight, but it was in fact Trudy.

"Oh rats," she said. "What gave me away."

"You sound like you," Jack pointed out. He kindly did not demand to know why she had wanted to scare him half to death. He was a child himself and understood the fun in that sort of game, even if he did not think it a _nice_ game to play in that moment. "How did you get here? Did the witch lock you in too? How did you get a candle?"

"I came by myself," she answered, "To rescue _you_, of course." And Jack thought maybe Trudy was not mean after all. People can be a strange mix of things, sometimes. "And" she continued, sounding disgusted now, "I find you _singing_. Some people do not know when they are in dire straits."

"I was singing to my friend," Jack explained. "He was scared. Or she."

"What friend?" Trudy demanded. "Don't tell me there _are_ ghosts of the children left down here to rot? I've been down loads of times, and I never saw a single rotting skeleton."

"He is a rat," Jack explained, feeling a little bit less friendly towards Trudy. He felt like she was trying to show off. Only when she stepped closer still, jumping slightly and looking ready to scream at a moment's notice, Jack felt more friendly again. Maybe she was scared too. Maybe she was trying to pretend this wasn't scary.

"You are friends with a rat?" she demanded. "Never mind, let's go. It's a good thing you are so tiny; the way out is narrow."

"Won't the witch be angry if I'm not here in the morning?"

"What does that matter, if you are gone? Anyway, if you really want to, you can come back before she checks. Or do you _want_ to spend the night here?"

"How much night is left?" Jack was absolutely certain morning must be just around the corner.

"Most of it," answered Trudy, to his surprise. "The clock only just struck ten when I snuck out, it can't be more than half past now."

"Oh," said Jack, feeling like that could not be true, only Trudy sounded so sure.

"Now come on, before Roger gets too scared and runs off and gives us all away."

"Roger?!" said Jack, feeling more confused than ever. Trudy was utterly unexpected, but it was so very _Trudy_ of her to simply show up where she wasn't meant to be able to go that Jack could not really question it. But _Roger_?

"He practically ordered me to come and free you," she said. "But he didn't want to follow in when I showed him the way. Scaredy-cat. Anyway, I got a good favor off him for rescuing you. Let's just say, I won't be doing my own sewing for at _least_ a year."

"Roger is _paying_ you to save me?" Jack demanded, more surprised by that than anything else that had happened thus far.

"I would have anyway, of course," Trudy was quick to stay, misunderstanding his shock as disgust, "But _he_ doesn't know that. And _you_ aren't to tell him, either." Then she grabbed his hand and started to lead him further into the basement.

Now that there was candlelight, the change in the basement was enormous. In most ways for the better; it was no longer a terrifying cave of the unknown, it was simply an old dusty room. Or rather, a series of rooms, as Jack soon learned; Trudy led them to a place where some boards had come loose in the wall and could be swung away, leading into a large space filled with broken furniture and old dusty crates and a rack of bottles, the only part of the room that showed any sign of being visited. In some ways, having a light was not so nice. For one, had Jack known just what his new rodent friend had looked like before, he would have been too terrified to make friends with him. For another, the light created shadows, and places that were half-light and half-shadow, and that is where the imagination builds monsters.

Jack did not have much time to imagine monsters, however, as Trudy was determined to leave quickly.

"Now," she said, after crossing the dusty room, "This is the tricky part. The good news is, most of the cobwebs were burned away when I first came through. But I have to carry the candle careful, or it will go out or set something on fire. So you have to follow after me."

And she wriggled down into a space that did not look like a rat could fit through it, let alone a little girl who was even bigger than Jack. Only it turned out not to be as solid as it looked. Jack watched Trudy disappear, along with her candlelight.

"Come on Ja-" her voice called, and then quite suddenly, there was nothing. He listened hard.

"Trudy?" he whispered. There was no answer. Jack groped in the darkness for the wall, then got down on his belly and wriggled forward. He felt something scrape against his back, flexing away as he _pushed_. He could feel the entire house squeezing him as he pushed through, and the only reason he kept at it was because he knew if Trudy could fit then so could he, and he could just about see a flicker of a glow ahead of him and he did not want to be lost in the underneath of the house. He pushed and he felt squeezed, and then with a sort of pop, he tumbled out the other side.

"Trudy?" he whispered. He thought he saw a bit of light ahead, but maybe that was a trick of his eyes because it seemed very dark to him. He wriggled forward. There was nowhere else to go. He hoped Trudy was just trying to scare him again by keeping quiet. He was afraid she wasn't.

"Trudy?" he called again, then, "Roger?" There was no answer. He crept forward a bit more. Something brushed against his foot and he froze. He heard a squeak. After a long moment, when nothing happened, he crept forward again. And then, quite suddenly, the ground dropped out beneath him and he fell.

He could not say what had happened, except he was sliding down something in the dark, and it went on and on for a long ways. It should have been terrifying, to drop away in the dark. Only…only it wasn't dark. He could see lights, like he was falling through stars, and he thought he saw trees, only upside down, and the rush of the slide was exhilarating even as it was terrifying, and Jack did not scream as he slid. He laughed.

"I say," said a voice from above him on the slide. The voice was male, and very proper and sounded rather surprised and confused. "This is a voyage."

Jack tilted his head. He could see quite well now, even if what he saw made no sense, and he could see the wood of the slide beneath them, and he could see above him there was a person, only it was not a person who seemed likely to have spoken words. It was a rat. In fact, Jack was almost certain that it was _his_ rat, the one he had sung songs with. Only it looked different on the slide. Up in the basement, when he had seen it properly, the rat had looked ragged and rough and wild. Now, it looked a bit ridiculous, paws braced against nothing as winds swept back its ragged fur into something rather fluffier, and what had seemed sharp teeth just looked like, well, teeth, perhaps sharp but not alarming.

"Excuse me," Jack called up to the rat, "Only…did you speak?"

"Of course I did," the rat answered. It gave Jack a rather suspicious look. "And you, kitten, did _you_ just speak?"

"I think so," answered Jack, who was so confused to be talking with a rat that he was not entirely certain of this.

"You think so?" said the rat, now looking at him with an expression of disapproval.

"_Lo siento_," Jack said automatically, then quickly covered his mouth in alarm at the wrong words.

"It's all very well," said the rat, "To say you are sorry. But whatever do you mean that you _think so_?"

This in turn confused Jack, who either expected the rat to react like other grownups (and the rat was a grownup, even if he was smaller than Jack) and scold him for saying the wrong words, or to be offended, or at any rate he did not expect the rat to seem to know what Jack had said.

After that, neither said anything for a moment. Jack did not mind. In the first place, talking to the rat had confused him. In the second, he was rather enjoying the sensation of the slide, and talking had distracted from that.

He wondered, even as he called 'whoa' and laughed as the slide curved and spun him around in a joyous manner, whether he should be worried about what would happen when the slide ended. It turned out, he did not need to be worried. What happed was they shot out of the strange place of stars and lights and wood and dropped into something quite soft that squelched and rippled beneath them.

They were outside. How, Jack could not begin to imagine. Perhaps they had fallen through the entire world and out the other side. When the world stopped spinning from the wild ride, and he could sit up and look around, he found the slide had come from a giant tree, and dropped them onto a lily pad in the middle of a vast lake. He also saw he was not alone. The rat was there. The rat was somehow now wearing a top hat, and a little vest with a pocket watch sticking out, though Jack was quite certain he had not had that before. There was also Trudy, looking rather surprised. Her candle had blown out, not that it mattered, as the moonlight made the world almost as bright as daytime. She was different too; instead of cobweb covered horrible clothes from the Cottage, she had on quite a nice green dress. Jack looked down and was somewhat surprised to find himself dressed in the same…not a dress, but a green and blue outfit, complete with a top hat on his head, though he was rather disappointed to find he did not have a pocket watch in his pocket, just Trudy's bit of burlap that he was meant to sew letters onto.

"…Is this the way out of the basement, then?" Jack asked Trudy. Trudy simply stared at him with wide eyes, then stared at the rat. She scooted away from the rat, making the lily pad dip and rippled beneath them.

"I do think the thing to do is explore this new place," the rat suggested in his primly proper voice. "My dear kitten, do stop your backwards crawl or you will find yourself in the water." This was to Trudy, who did in fact stop moving. She still stared at the rat with wide eyes, but now she looked a bit indignant as well.

"I am not a '_kitten'_" she said.

"My apologies," said the rat, though he sounded more indulgent than apologetic, the same tone a parent gets when a toddler insists it can dress itself, and then promptly puts on its clothes back to front. "I can see you are practically a full grown doe." Trudy did not seem to know how to answer this.

There was a noise then, a noise rather like 'whee' and 'whoa' and 'how long does this go on?'. That was all the warning they got before newcomers dropped down the slide and onto their lily pad, making the whole thing bounce about and nearly had Trudy bouncing right into the water as she was precariously close to the edge, only the rat managed to scramble to her side and grab her with his tail. He seemed even bigger than Jack remembered, not the size of a cat but a dog, and he was quite strong enough to keep her from the water.

The newcomers were also wearing new clothes, different shades of green, but despite the unfamiliar outfits Jack knew them at once.

"Jimmy!" he said, "Octavius! Roger!"

"Oof" said Roger, who had ended beneath the others. "Budge up, Davy. For a little guy you sure are heavy." The three untangled themselves and sat up. Despite there now being six people on the lily pad, it remained quite buoyant and held them all up easily. It was really enormously large for a lily pad.

"This is a dream," said Jimmy as he sat up. None of them stood; the ground felt too unstable for that.

"Jack, you're safe!" said Octavius, wobbling his way over to give Jack a hug.

"Now what shall we do?" asked the rat. The three boys who had yet to meet him stared. Roger shrieked and hid behind Jimmy.

"I think," said a voice that did not belong to any of them, "That the thing to do is offer your greetings to the Queen. That is the _polite_ thing to do." The voice sounded prim and proper and rather disapproving and they all turned to see the newcomer. She stood on the shore, wearing a green and blue dress that exactly suited her with a stylish hat on her head and holding a lacy green umbrella, unopened, in the crook of one arm.

The night Jack spent in the basement of the Cottage was one of the worst in his life. The night he spent under the basement was one of the strangest. And, perhaps, one of the best.


	13. Chapter 13

Years later, Jack would tell three curious children that he first met Mary Poppins while being apprenticed to a sweep. Years later, he would tell a curious Jane that he first met Mary Poppins after writing a letter to the mayor while living in the Cottage. Both statements are absolutely true. For a certain degree of truth.

"What queen?" Trudy asked the woman. "Are _you_ the Queen?"

"Certainly not," answered the woman, clearly offended, as if being mistaken for a queen was a dire insult. She did not offer her name.

"My dear doe," said the rat, and he stood up on his hind paws to bow. It was a wonderful bow, but somewhat ruined by his unstable environs and nearly had both him and Trudy in the lake. Roger laughed. The woman did not. She looked pleased by the bow, and kindly did not mention the near fall.

"Mr. Ree," the woman said to the rat, with a bit of a curtsy. She looked much nicer and much less intimidating when she smiled.

"Perhaps a bit of help to shore?" asked the rat, or Mr. Ree as his name appeared to be. "I believe I could manage it, but these kittens might need help."

"Why do you keep calling us all '_kittens'_?" Trudy demanded, though she had yet to let go of the rat's tail so perhaps she was not as cross with him as she sounded.

"A kitten is the proper word for an infant rat, of course," said the woman from the shore. "What else is he meant to call you?"

Trudy was so surprised by this information that she did not even get indignant over finding the rat was, essentially, calling them all infants.

"This is a very real dream," said Jimmy, splashing his hand experimentally in the water.

"Is it a dream?" Jack asked, feeling very disappointed. That did seem more likely than him really following Trudy down a slide into the outside where his best friends joined him and rats could talk.

"It doesn't feel like a dream," said Octavius.

"Don't be stupid," said Trudy. "It's all too silly to be a dream. My dreams are more sensible. Well, let's show that rat we are no helpless kittens and we can get to shore." And she tucked her candle into the pocket of her new dress and started an awkward, wobbling few steps towards the edge of the lily pad where a second pad rested almost directly at its side.

"My dreams are usually more sensible too," said Jimmy. "Only this cannot be real."

"Does it matter if it is real or not?" asked Jack, who rather hoped it was. This was real magic, not the wicked witch kind but the fun adventure kind, and he hoped to make the most of it.

"See," said Trudy, who had hopped to the next pad. It did not really show what she had hoped, however, as Mr. Ree had to push her from behind before the lip of the lily pad she had stepped onto could dip her down into the water. "What did you do that for?!" cried Trudy as she pulled herself back to her feet in the middle of the pad, never having realized her perilous position.

"Here, I will hold it steady for you," said the rat, ignoring Trudy but speaking to the boys, and he grasped the edge of the second pad between his paws. "Now you can all cross."

"Thank you," said Jack, and he followed. Octavius, Roger and Jimmy came more slowly, Roger with reckless bounds that almost had all of them falling when he rippled the pads, Octavius with a more cautious crawl and Jimmy sensibly shuffling on his knees. The woman at the shore silently watched their progress. Whatever Mr. Ree had asked of her, she did not offer any help that Jack could see. Then again, she did not seem to need to. It had looked a difficult swim across the large lake when they had first looked, but somehow there was always a new lily pad, or in one instance, a lily, just where they needed it.

The final lily pad, which had been several feet off the shore when they first climbed over to it, slid across the water as Mr. Ree scrambled across, seemingly in response to the movement, and happened to take them exactly all the way to the shore. They all managed to scramble over without getting a single foot or paw wet, let alone falling in.

Once upon the shore they all stood in a row before the woman, who was now looking them over like an army captain surveying her troops. She did not appear satisfied with what she found.

"Not as put together as one would hope for, but I suppose it can't be helped. Off we go."

And she was so authoritative on the matter that none of them questioned why they had to follow her, though Jimmy did say, "Excuse me, ma'am, but where are we going."

The woman did not answer. Mr. Ree did for her. "Didn't you hear her, young kitten? We are off to pay our respects to the Queen."

"What queen?" demanded Trudy. "Surely not the queen of England?"

"The Rose Queen, of course." This time it was the woman who answered. "This is her garden, after all."

They were walking through a garden, but a very strange one, Jack noted. At first, it had seemed they were walking through a wood, only for him to look up and gasp. It was not trees they passed at all, but enormously tall stalks ending in brilliantly colored petals. They weren't roses, though. Jack did not know much about flowers, but he knew that much.

"If this is a rose garden, where are the roses?" he asked.

"Step lively, please," the woman answered in a brisk manner. "Best foot forward."

And she walked so quickly that they had to half jog to catch up and there was no chance for more questions, though she slowed a little after a few minutes, enough that they could talk to each other.

"Perhaps we have all shrunk," Roger suggested, staring up thoughtfully at the orange and yellow blossoms above their heads. "The witch has caught us after all and turned us all into bugs."

"_You_ may be a bug, but _I_ am not," Trudy answered. The woman said nothing, not seeming to notice their conversation.

"It's a dream," Jimmy insisted. "You get oddities in dreams. Like giant flowers. And talking rats in top hats."

"Thank you for noticing," Mr. Ree said to Jimmy, tipping his hat. Jimmy did not look at him and walked a little faster.

"Were you the rat I sang to in the basement?" Jack asked, trying to turn his head everywhere in wonder at the situation. He wanted to see the wonderful flowers over their heads, and the bright full moon that filled the sky, and Mr. Ree who was a wonder all by himself, and the mysterious woman who had become their leader in this strange land. He was excited to know what would happen next. And he liked making new friends.

"I do not know about 'basement'," said Mr. Ree, "But we first met when you were left in the Kingdom of Kreree by the horrible witch who dwells in the Above. I can only assume you were left as sacrifice. I could not in good conscious leave a kitten alone, unguarded. There are others…" here, Mr. Ree seemed almost embarrassed, "a low kind of rat without any breeding mind, who would be so unscrupulous as to do harm to an unguarded kitten, whatever the species."

"You…you were guarding me?" Jack asked, not knowing how he felt about that. It had been nice having a friend in the dark, but terrifying. He did not know if it made it better or worse to learn the rat really was friendly…and that there were unfriendly rats about.

"I guard all the kittens left in tribute. Usually they are retrieved at dawn. Most of them scream and cry and talk nonsense. They do not sing. You…you are a remarkable little kitten."

"Jack always sings at the oddest times," Roger agreed, throwing an arm around him as though to claim him.

"You were trying to fight him over it this morning…or is it yesterday morning now?" Octavius said, clearly disgruntled by Roger's show of friendship towards _his_ friend.

"He didn't like sharing Trudy," said Jimmy solemnly, not seeming to mind particularly, just stating a fact. Roger went bright red and glared at Jimmy.

"Didn't he?" asked Trudy, sounding delighted.

They came to a new part of the garden then, and it was so interesting that everyone forgot about each other and their quarrels or intrigues to stare about at it.

Stems twisted about over their heads, covered in thorns like swords. It should have been dark and terrifying, but it did not feel that way. It felt safe, and solemn and important.

"It's creepy," said Trudy. Jack was shocked by that. That was not what he felt at all.

"It's like a cathedral," he said, staring and staring. That earned a smile from the woman who led them, though Jack didn't notice, as his eyes were still on the briar cathedral before them.

"Where are the roses?" asked Jimmy. "This is where the roses should be, isn't it?"

And then there was a sort of cough, and they stopped looking up and looked straight ahead. And there was a rose. It was also a man. Or perhaps it was both. Or neither. At any rate, there was a person, dressed in a fine green suit, with a head like a rose, the part that should have been hair being the whirls of petals and the underside, where the petals met, forming a face. The face was not a pleasant one. It also looked somewhat familiar, though Jack couldn't say why. He didn't know any roses.

"This does not make any sense," said Jimmy. He sounded almost scared. Jack reached over and took his hand.

"Good evening," said the woman leading them along. "We are here to pay our respects to the Queen."

"Right this way," said the rose man, and he led them beneath the briars. Now that they were looking, they saw roses everywhere, in all sizes. There were young pink blossoms, their 'hair' loosely bunched, giggling behind leafy fans. There were old, withered red roses, dignified and somewhat graying, their petals hanging flatly down their backs. There were even little buds, tiny ones who giggled and ran about, in pink and red and yellow and white and every color a rose can be, and a few roses generally are not, their tiny faces peeping underneath tiny, unopened petals pointing out the backs of their heads.

Jack would have liked to meet with some of them, especially the children, but they were led swiftly onwards and he never had the chance. They were taken to a place where long, leafy, flowered strands hung down from the briars in a curtain, making a sort of space apart from the rest. Here the flower man paused.

"It is the custom," he said, in a stiff sort of voice, "to offer a gift before entering the presence of the Queen."

"A gift?" asked the woman, sounding almost offended.

"A song is the usual gift," the rose intoned solemnly.

"Very well," said the woman, sounding at once reluctant, like a person performing a necessary but unpleasant chore, and yet, at the same time, also sounding pleased. "If it is the custom."

The sudden strumming of a chord startled most of them. While they were looking forward towards the hidden bower, an audience had drawn around them, complete with an orchestra. Jack never completely understood how it came about, but in a moment the woman was _singing_. It was impossible to say whether it was rehearsed or if it was like Jack's singing game, all made up on the spot, but either way it was magical to behold.

_What is real is not real unless you make it so_

_Whosoever you name friend cannot be a foe_

_The most villainous thief in all the land cannot steal what you know_

_But you cannot know what you could have known if you refuse to grow_

_So take a chance and make a friend and learn where you may go_

The music was catchy, the kind that caught at your toes and pulled, even if the words did sound a bit like nonsense. At any rate, Jack did not understand what the song was meant to be about, except that it urged at them to do something. It reminded him of some of his own silly songs he made in his games, where the words came out to rhyme without reason.

He felt drawn into the woman's dance without quite meaning to, singing the chorus with her as it came around again. He was not alone there; Mr. Ree had joined in with him. Roger and Octavius did not go as far as joining in, but they smiled and clapped their hands and tapped their feet. Trudy half danced, refusing to smile or sing or admit it was fun.

Jimmy likely would have stayed back and solemnly watched and waited to wake up. Only, all this time, Jack had been holding his hand. And Jack danced, but he wasn't one to abandon a friend, so when he danced he did not let go, he _pulled_, inviting Jimmy to join them with a laugh. And Jimmy mostly intended to just stand still, did not mean to dance at all, because this was all nonsense and a bit scary and made no sense. Only Jack was smiling, and singing, and that was very like Jack and that was not nonsense or scary at all. And maybe the music pulled at something deep inside him, the beat getting into his feet, and maybe he listened to the words and understood them in ways Jack did not, or maybe it simply occurred to him that this was just a dream and nonsense so it did not matter what he did.

Jimmy danced. He did not sing along, and it was all still nonsense, but he danced. And maybe, like Jack, he felt the rush of air against his skin as he moved, felt deep inside him the swoop from spinning, felt the music thrum through his bones, and he smiled.

"Jimmy can dance?" Roger said, sounding incredulous.

"Anyone can dance, stupid" said Trudy, and she twirled about as though to prove it.

And then the song ended; the woman and Mr. Ree and Jack all sang the chorus one last time and then bowed to the hush-hush applause of leafy hands clapping together. The stately rose pulled the curtain aside and gestured, and the woman went through, followed by the rat. Jack and his friends started to follow, only the the rose man guarding the entrance to the queen looked pointedly towards the other children and said, "And where is your gift? Do you not sing?"

The path was still held open for Jack, but Jack paused. He did not want to go through without his friends. The rose man looked impatient now, though still utterly polite.

"Go on through, young bud," he told Jack. "Your gift has been accepted."

"Not without my friends," said Jack.

"As you wish," said the rose man, and he allowed the curtain to fall back into place. Then every rose and the entire orchestra stared pointedly at the remaining children.

"Oh," said Jimmy, a bit out of breath from dancing, "I can't."

"Anyone can sing," Trudy said, and then, as though to prove it, she sang 'Baa, baa, black sheep'. What she lacked in tune she made up for in volume. But when she got to the part where she was going to repeat it, the rose man quickly said, "That will do," and he held the curtain for her. She entered at once. The rose man turned to look at the boys.

"I don't know that song," Octavius whispered. "We never sing songs."

"I can't think," Roger said, "Not with everyone looking at us. This is worse than reciting from the Bible in front of the Witch."

Jack looked at his friends, then at where the woman and Mr. Ree had vanished, and then at his friends again.

"Do the singing game," Jack said. "Make up anything to sing and then add a tune. You can…you can sing the last bible verse you learned. Anything can be a song."

"…I remember my Bible verse," said Roger, and he sang it, a bit wobbly at first and he almost forgot to make it music and not a recitation, but it came out stronger in the end. Octavius sang his verse next, with even more skill; he almost sounded like he enjoyed it. After, he whispered, "And I wish we could always sing them, on Sundays."

Everyone looked at Jimmy. Jimmy did not sing.

"Go on, Jimmy," said Jack, sounding encouraging.

"It's all nonsense," said Jimmy. "That isn't how the Bible verse is said. It isn't."

"Just do it," said Roger, sounding impatient and not at all kind. "I want to finally meet this queen." At least he was kind enough about it to not leave Jimmy behind.

Jack wondered if Jimmy was feeling the same feeling Jack felt when his words would not come. It could easily have been Jack who could not sing, except he had already sung, swept up in the woman's music. He knew that Roger was not helping; it never helped Jack when people told him, 'just talk'. He tried to think of what did help.

He knew what did not help. Silence. Staring. Everything that was happening right then for Jimmy.

"We need music," Jack said. "You can dance, and just say the words while the music plays."

And he went to the orchestra and waved at them, trying to tell them to play something, anything, something with a beat. He was rather surprised when they actually _did_.

For a moment, it looked like it wasn't going to work; Jimmy just stood there. Octavius and Roger jumped up and down in time to the music, but Jimmy did not move and he did not utter a sound.

"Dance, Jimmy," Jack said, and he grabbed his hand and he pulled. Jimmy followed, his feet catching the beat.

"Now say your words," said Jack, "And they will be a song."

"This is not real," said Jimmy, and it did not sound exactly like music, but it did not sound exactly not like music either; the beat had gotten into Jimmy's voice. And just like it happened to Jack, it seemed all Jimmy needed was to start, because he half chanted a sort of song to the tune of the drums in the orchestra. It wasn't how Jack would have done it; nothing rhymed for one, but it was a song.

"This is not real, it's nonsense, all, roses are flowers, people are people, I like to draw, I draw what I see, maybe…maybe I will draw rose people from out of this dream because it is not real but my friends are real and…that is the truth I know."

"What was that?" Roger asked scornfully, but whispering to Octavius. And the orchestra finished and the flower people clapped for Jimmy just as they had after the first song. Jimmy did not look like he knew whether he should smile or cry or bow, so Jack smiled and bowed for him.

And the curtain was held aside for them and they went through together to meet the queen.


End file.
